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THEORIES  OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 


THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

NEW   YORK    •    BOSTON    •    CHICAGO    ■    DALLAS 
ATLANTA    -    SAN    FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN   &  CO.,  Limited 

LONDON  •  BOMBAY  •  CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 
OF   CANADA,   Limited 


THEORIES  OF  STYEE 

WITH  HSPECIAL  RKFHRHNCH  TO 
PROSE  COMPOSITION 

ESSAYS,     EXCERPTS,     AND     TRANSLATIONS 

ARRANGED   AND   ADAPTED   BY 

LANE    COOPER,    Ph.D. 

ASSISTANT   PROFESSOR   OF    ENGLISH    IN    CORNELL    UNIVERSITY 


Qiiat'C  non  iit  intellegere  possit,  scd  ne  omnino  possit 
nditm. 

QUINTILIAN,  Institutio  Oratoria,  VIII.  2. 


We  to  ^arft 
THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:    MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 
1930 


•  FRINTfEL  IN   THE    UNITED   STATES    OF   AMERICA 


Copyright,  1907, 
By  the  MACMILLAN  COMPANY, 


All  rights  reserved  —  no  part  of  this 

book  may  be  reproduced  in  any  form 

without    permission    in    writing    from 

the  publisher. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  August,  1907. 


NorfajDoti  ^rcss 

J.  S.  Gushing  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


s.^'^n':*!:^--^ 


PREFACE 

This  volume,  the  editor  imagines,  may  prove  serviceable 
to  teachers  of  English  in  more  than  one  way. 

From  its  origin  —  and  apart  from  the  style  of  the  editor's 
translations  —  it  may  be  regarded  first  of  all  as  a  body  of 
literary  models  to  be  used  in  illustration  of  some  good  hand- 
book on  English  prose  composition,  by  classes  in  what  is 
technically  known  as  Exposition,  i.e.  written  explanation. 
The  editor's  conception  of  such  a  volume  of  models  arose 
partly  from  his  belief  —  which  needs  no  discussion  here  — 
that  of  the  three  generally  recognized  Forms  of  Prose  Writing, 
namely,  Description,  Narration,  and  Exposition,  only  Expo- 
sition can  be  advantageously  taught  as  a  practical  art  by 
the  average  instructor  in  English  to  the  average  class ;  partly 
from  his  objection  to  certain  books  of  "standard"  selections, 
which  professed  rhetoricians  have  seen  fit  to  compile  for 
similar  purposes  of  illustration  in  the  classroom.  In  his 
opinion  these  compilations  suffer  from  one  fairly  obvious 
defect. 

As  a  rule,  they  seem  to  lack  a  fundamental  principle  which 
every  teacher  of  thinking  and  writing  is  supposed  to  demand 
of  every  book,  and  to  inculcate  in  the  mind  of  every  pupil. 
They  seem  lacking  in  unity.  The  several  selections  in  a 
typical  volume,  if  they  happen  to  be  complete  in  themselves, 
and  if  they  are  really  taken  from  standard  authors,  have  other- 
wise a  purely  formal  bond  of  similarity:  they  are  merely 
samples  of  one  or  other  of  the  three  kinds  of  writing  that  com- 


Vlil  PRE  FA  CE 

prise  all  literature.  Diversity  of  authorship,  of  course,  is 
inevitable  in  an  anthology.  Whether  the  substance  of  any 
book  employed  in  the  teaching  of  composition  should  be  so 
heterogeneous  as  of  itself  to  produce  no  definite  and  lasting 
impression  on  the  plastic  mind,  merits  serious  consideration. 
Perhaps  it  is  a  question  to  be  decided  by  experience.  So  far 
as  the  writer's  observation  goes,  the  typical  book  of  illustrative 
excerpts,  drawn  from  many  authors,  and  dealing  with  widely 
diverse  topics,  is  not  a  ready  instrument  for  coordinating  the 
processes  of  the  average  undergraduate  brain.  Hurrying, 
within  the  space  of  a  college  term,  from  some  popular  account 
of  a  glacier  through  eighteen  other  disconnected  and  often 
fragmentary  discussions,  and  ending,  let  us  say,  with  a  chap- 
ter from  Darwin's  Descent  of  Man,  the  student  of  such  a  col- 
lection will  hardly  observe  along  the  route  much  more  of  the 
method  of  exposition  than  can  be  totally  dissociated  from  a 
well-earned  grasp  of  any  one  subject. 

In  brief,  the  present  volume  owes  its  origin  to  a  conviction 
that  the  link  between  substance  and  form,  between  knowledge 
and  expression,  ought  never  to  be  broken;  and  that  before  an 
underclassman  is  urged  to  write  a  composition,  he  ought  to 
begin  systematic  thinking  in  a  field  where  his  teacher  is  quali- 
fied to  judge  of  his  manner  of  discussion,  through  a  critical 
acquaintance  with  the  matter  discussed.  A  specialist  in 
English  need  not  be  thoroughly  versed  in  Darwinism;  he 
can  scarcely  be  expected  to  show  much  familiarity  with  the 
theory  of  glacial  action  ;  he  may  properly  be  supposed  to  know 
something  about  the  mechanism  of  style,  and  to  have  made 
some  study  of  the  evolution  of  types  in  literature.  Hence  arose 
in  my  mind  the  idea  of  an  orderly  collection  of  essays  on  style, 
with  especial  reference  to  prose  composition ;  a  body  of 
expository  writing,  for  the  most  part  by  masters  of  expression, 
at  once  illustrating  and  reiterating  the  salient  principles  of  the 


PREFACE  ix 

text-book  *  which  it  may  accompany;  a  group  of  stimulating 
and,  on  the  whole,  mutually  corroborative  selections,  repre- 
senting not  too  many  literary  types  for  easy  comprehension  of 
their  structure,  and  printed  as  far  as  possible  without  curtail- 
ment. 

The  material  of  the  volume  has  been  chosen,  however,  with 
a  view  to  possible  applications  other  than  the  one  just  out- 
lined, though  not,  it  is  hoped,  inconsistent  with  it.  For  ex- 
ample, aside  from  the  question  of  models  for  practical  criticism 
and  imitation,  the  selections  offer  some  opportunity  for  a 
purely  theoretical  investigation  of  at  least  two  closely  allied 
literary  species,  the  essay  and  the  address  on  style.  Facilities 
for  the  study  of  specific  types  in  prose  are  as  yet  not  too  abun- 
dant. In  addition  to  its  use  in  the  classroom,  the  volume 
may  likewise  serve  as  a  work  of  outside  reference,  since,  al- 
though it  makes  no  pretence  to  inclusiveness,  it  aims  to  bring 
together  a  considerable  number  of  historic  utterances  on  style, 
not  all  of  which  are  very  accessible  elsewhere.  By  supplying 
an  adequate  historic  background  for  the  more  recent  treatises, 
it  has,  I  think,  a  substantial  advantage  over  text-books  of 
composition  and  rhetoric  that  ignore,  or  underrate,  the 
debt  of  English  style  to  the  Greek  and  Latin  classics. 

In  the  actual  employment  of  material  like  this,  every  teacher, 
of  course,  will  pursue  to  a  certain  extent  his  own  method,  in 
accordance  with  his  personal  leanings  and  the  constitution  of 
his  classes.  In  general, —  even  with  not  very  advanced  stu- 
dents, —  the  writer  inclines  to  a  practice  somewhat  as  follows. 
Some  text-book  having  afforded  a  preliminary  knowledge  of 
the  main  forms  of  prose  composition,  at  a  given  meeting  let 
the  class  be  ready  to  discuss  the  substance  and  the  form  of  one 
of  the  earlier  selections,  say  that  from  Wackernagel,  with  sufli- 

*  For  example,  Professor  J.  M.  Hart's  Essentials  of  Prose  Composition, 
Philadelphia,  1902. 


X  PREFACE 

cient  free  play  of  opinion ;  each  individual,  however,  basing 
his  share  in  the  discussion  upon  a  thorough  written  analysis 
of  the  whole  selection.  In  the  case  of  immature  students 
these  analyses  would  afterward  be  subject  to  the  instructor's 
private  supervision.  At  the  next  meeting  let  each  member 
of  the  class  be  prepared  with  a  paper — -also  accompanied  by 
an  outline  —  expanding  some  special  topic  in  that  selection, 
or  elaborating  some  point  raised  in  the  discussion.  When  one 
has  read,  the  others  should  feel  encouraged  to  question  and 
comment.  The  instructor  may  or  may  not  pass  final  judg- 
ment on  a  paper.  He  is  a  moderator,  whose  function  is  to 
stimulate  his  class  to  mental  self-activity,  and  quietly  to  mould 
it  into  a  living,  intelligent,  social  unit.  This  function  he  can 
best  perform  with  groups  of  not  more  than  fifteen  pupils  — 
preferably  of  ten  or  twelve;  and,  if  he  has  tact,  with  much 
younger  minds  than  are  usually  drilled  in  anything  approach- 
ing a  "seminary"  course.  Each  student  should  preserve 
his  own  papers,  properly  revised,  for  special  conference  from 
time  to  time  with  the  instructor.  The  net  amount  of  writing 
expected  of  an  underclassman  per  week  should  be  far  less 
than  is  customary  in  some  of  the  "theme"  courses  at  our 
American  universities ;  the  amount  of  time  spent  in  the  prepa- 
ration and  revision  of  any  one  theme,  far  greater.  The  stu- 
dent who  cannot  be  sufhciently  interested  in  his  English  to 
plan  a  composition  twice,  and  to  rewrite  it  thrice,  should  not, 
under  ordinary  circumstances,  hope  to  master  even  the  rudi- 
ments of  plain  exposition. 

Save  for  the  introductory  translation  from  Wackernagel, 
the  order  of  the  selections  is  roughly  chronological;  but  it 
need  not  be  followed.  The  excerpt  from  Aristotle  might  be 
read  before  that  from  Plato.  Lewes  or  Thoreau  might  be 
kept  until  the  close  of  the  term.  Manifestly,  Wackernagel, 
Aristotle,  Plato,  and  Longinus  are  inserted  as  standards  by 


PKEKICE  XI 

which  to  measure  the  remaining  authors,  and  should  be 
taken  up  before  Swift,  Buffon,  and  the  rest. 

In  tlie  process  of  comparing  one  selection  with  another, 
students  should  cultivate  the  habit  of  marginal  cross-refer- 
ence; for  the  various  authors  may  be  made,  so  to  speak,  to 
annotate  and  reenforce  one  another  on  essential  points.  A 
few  parallels  are  indicated  in  the  Notes:  enough,  it  is  hoped, 
to  suggest  to  a  reader  the  possibility  of  his  discovering 
many  more  by  himself.  A  complete  critical  apparatus  has 
not  been  attempted,  the  editor  having  desired  throughout  to 
suppress  adventitious  matter,  so  as  to  include  a  greater 
number  of  masterpieces,  and  thus  to  increase  the  general 
field  of  comparison.  However,  he  hopes  that  the  remarks 
preceding  and  following  the  several  selections  will  be  of  some 
utility  to  students  or  to  teachers. 

In  the  introductory  notes  teachers  will  not  overlook  cer- 
tain references  that  would  enable  classes  inadequately  fur- 
nished with  copies  of  this  book,  but  near  a  good  library,  to 
find  many  of  the  selections  in  a  variety  of  sources. 

As  a  general  introduction  to  the  volume,  the  editor  offers, 
not,  of  course,  his  own  theory  of  style  —  nobody  would  want 
that  —  but  a  theory,  or  the  skeleton  thereof,  by  an  estab- 
lished modem  authority,  Wackernagel,  with  whom  the  editor 
feels  himself  essentially  in  agreement.  The  Introduction, 
then,  amounts  merely  to  an  extra  selection  taken  out  of  chron- 
ological order,  and  placed  for  the  sake  of  prominence  at  the 
beginning. 

In  concluding  the  Preface,  the  editor  desires  to  acknowledge, 
very  gratefully,  his  indebtedness  to  others  whose  good-will 
has  made  the  collection  possible :  to  the  late  and  lamented 
M.  Brunetiere  and  to  Mr.  Harrison  for  permission  to  use 
their  articles  here  reprinted;  to  Mr.  Saunders  and  Bishop 
Welldon  for  sections  from  their  translations  of  Schopenhauer 


xii  PREFACE 

and  Aristotle  respectively;  to  Mr.  Havell  for  his  version  of 
Longinus;  to  the  publishers  of  material  here  included,  and 
not  otherwise  in  the  copyright  of  Messrs.  Macmillan;  these 
last  obligations  are  specifically  noted  in  the  proper  places. 
To  the  series  of  essays  on  style  edited  by  Professor  Fred 
N.  Scott  (Boston,  Allyn  &  Bacon)  such  a  compilation  is  neces- 
sarily indebted.  That  series,  and  the  Methods  and  Materials 
oj  Literary  Criticism,  by  Professors  Gayley  and  Scott  (Boston, 
Ginn  &  Co.),  ought  to  be  owned  by  every  teacher  who 
would  use  the  present  volume  most  intelligently.  Finally, 
the  editor  owes  his  thanks  to  Professor  Louis  Bevier  of  Rut- 
gers College,  for  looking  over  the  translations  from  Wacker- 
nagel  and  Goethe ;  to  Professors  O.  G.  Guerlac  and  W.  Strunk, 
Jr.,  of  Cornell,  for  glancing  through  those  from  Buffon  and 
Voltaire ;  to  Professor  J.  L.  Haney  of  the  Central  High 
School,  Philadelphia,  for  valuable  suggestions  touching  the 
Bibhography;  and  to  Mr.  A.  W.  Graver  and  Mr.  A.  H. 
Gilbert  for  their  assistance  in  reading  proof.  All  other  debts 
are,  he  hopes,  properly  recognized  where  they  occur. 


BIBLIOGRAPHY 

[The  following  titles  represent  such  books  and  articles  dealing  with  s<yle, 
especially  prose  style,  as  the  editor  has  noted  in  compiling  the  present  volume. 
References  which,  in  his  opinion,  cannot  safely  be  disregarded  by  anyone  who 
wishes  to  go  more  deeply  into  the  subject,  are  indicated  by  asterisks.  Certain 
titles  included  above,  in  the  Table  of  Contents,  are  not  repeated  here ;  a  few 
additional  references,  on  the  style  of  individual  authors,  will  be  found  in  subse- 
quent introductions  and  notes  to  the  several  selections.] 

1.  Academy.     The  Proper  Prose  Style.     (Vol.  57,  p.  576.) 

2.  Academy.     Studies  in    Contemporary  Style.     (Vol.  57,  pp.  379, 

767.) 

3.  Academy.  Excess  of  Style.     (Vol.  58,  p.  15.) 

4.  Academy.  Literary  Style.     (Vol.  59,  p.  223.) 

5.  Academy.  Style  of  Modern  Journalists.     (Vol.  60,  p.  231.) 

6.  Academy.  The    Glittering    Style.     (Vol.  61,  p.    243.)     (Same 

article:  Living A^e,  Nov.  16,  1901,  Vol.  231,  pp.  458-461.) 

7.  Alb AL AT,  A.  L'Art  d'6crire.   Paris,  Colin,  7' tW.,  1901.    (Reviewed 

in   Nation,   May    18,    1899,  Vol.   68,  pp.  381-382;   Athencsnin, 
Feb.  4,  1899,  —  1899,  Vol.  I,  p.  145.) 

8.  Albalat,    a.     La    Formation    du    style    par   I'assimilation    des 

auteurs.     Paris,    Colin,   1901.      (Reviewed  in  Nation,  Oct.    17, 

1901,  Vol.  73,  pp.  308-309;    At/ienceum,  Oct.  12,  1901, —  1901, 
Vol.  2,  p.  491.) 

9.  *  Aristotle.     Poetics,    Chapters     XIX-XXII.  (Butcher,  S.  H., 

Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry  and  Fine  Art,  London,  Macmillan, 
1898,  pp.  69-87.) 

10.  Arnold,  M.     (See  Cook,  No.  39.) 

11.  *  Athen^um.     Review  of  Symons,  A.,  Studies  in  Prose  and  Verse. 

(April  22,  1905  ;   1905,  Vol.  i,  pp.  487-488.)     (Contains  a  note- 
worthy description  of  the  subjective  side  of  style.) 

12.  Bain,  A.     English  Composition  and  Rhetoric.     New  York,  Apple- 

ton,  1879,  etc.     {Par-t  I  [pp.  20-152]  is  on  style.) 

13.  Bain,  A.     On  Teaching  English.     New  York,  1887.    (Deals  chiefly 

with  style  [esp.  pp.  41-206]  ;  not  a  well-organized  book.) 

14.  Bainton,  G.   [Ed.]     The  Art  of  Authorship  .  .  .  Advice  to  Young 

Beginners,  personally  contributed  by  Leading  Authors  of  the  Day 
[etc.].     London,  Clarke,  1890.     (See  Spectator,  May  17,  1S90.) 

15.  Baldwin,  C.  S.   How  to  Write.     A  Handbook  based  on  the  English 

Bible.     New   York,    Macmillan,    1905.     (Reviewed   in   Literary 
Digest,  July  15,  1905,  Vol.  31,  pp.  79-80.) 


xiv  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

1 6.  *  Becker,  K.  F.     Der  deutsche  Stil.      Prag,  Tempsky,  j.  Atifl., 

1883. 

17.  Bird,  F.  M.     Paralyzers  of  Style.    Lippivcott''s  Magasinc.     (Feb., 

i8g6;  Vol.  57,  pp.  280-284.) 

18.  Blair,  H.     Lectures  on  Rhetoric  and  Belles  Lettres.     Edinburgh, 

1783.     {Lectures  XVIII-XXIV  treat  of  style:) 

19.  *  BOECKH,  A.     Encyclopadie  und  Methodologie  der  philologischen 

Wissenschaften.  Leipzig,  Teubner,  1886.  (For  style,  see  pp. 
124-140;  245-248;  810-816.) 

20.  BouRGET,  P.     Essais  de  psychologic   contemporaine.     Paris,  Le- 

merre,  4«  ed,  1885.  (Pp.  156-173:  Gustave  Flaubert,  HI, 
Thhries  dart.) 

21.  BouRGET,    P.     Nouveaux  Essais   de    psychologie   contemporaine. 

Paris,  Lemerre,  1886.  (Pp.  180-198:  MM.  Edinond  et  Jules  de 
Goiicourt,  ///,  Questiofis  de  style.) 

22.  Brewster,  W.  T.  [Ed.]     Representative  Essays  on  the  Theory  of 

Style.  New  York,  Macmillan,  1905.  (Introduction,  pp.  ix-xxvii. 
Contains  essays  on  style  by  De  Quincey,  Spencer,  Stevenson, 
Pater,  and  Harrison,  and  selections  from  Newman  and  Lewes.) 

23.  Brewster,  W.  T.,  and  G.  R.  Carpenter.     Studies  in  Structure 

and  Style  (Based  on  Seven  Modern  Essays).  New  York,  Mac- 
millan, 1896. 

24.  Brockhaus.     Conversations-Lexicon.     1898.     (Vol.    15,    p.   359, 

Stil.) 

25.  *  Brunetiere,  F.     Style  (en  litterature).     La    Grande  Encyclo- 

pedie.     (Vol.  30,  pp.  558-562.) 

26.  Buck,  W.  J.     Style  in  English.      Writer.     (Vol.  11,  p.  30.) 

27.  BuLWER    Lytton,    E.     Caxtoniana.     New   York,    Harper,    1864. 

( Cliapter  VIII :  On  Rliytliiii  in  English  Prose  as  conducive  to 
Precision  and  Clearness,  pp.  79-81.  Chapter  IX:  On  Style 
aftd  Diction,  pp.  83-101.) 

28.  Burroughs,  J.     Style  and  "  The  Stylist."     Critic.  (Dec,  1898; 

Vol.  33,  pp.  464-465.) 

29.  Burroughs,  J.     The  Vital  Touch  in  Literature.    Atlaidic  Monthly. 

(March,  1899;  Vol.  83,  pp.  399-406.) 

30.  Campbell,  G.     The  Philosophy  of  Rhetoric.     New  York,  Harper, 

1846,  etc.     {Parts  II  and  ///  treat  of  style.) 

31.  Chaignet,   a.     La  rhetorique  et  son  histoire.     Paris,  Bouillon  et 

Vieweg,  1888.     (Pp.  413-539:   Theorie  du  style.) 

32.  Chambers's  Journal.     Style.     (May  24,  1845;  Vol.  3,  pp.  321- 

322.) 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  XV 

33.  Christian  Monthly  Spectator.    Essay  and  Oratorical  Style. 

(Vol.  4,  P-  356-) 

34.  *  Cicero.    On  Oratory  and  Orators  [etc.],  Translated  [etc.]  by  J.  S. 

Watson.     London,  Bohn,  1855.     (For  j-///^,  see  Index.) 

35.  *  Coleridge,  S.  T.  Biographia  Literaria,  Chapter  XX.    Coleridge's 

Works,  ed.  Shedd.  New  York,  Harper,  1884.  (Vol.  3,  pp.  443-460  : 
"  The  Neutral  Style,  or  That  Common  to  Prose  and  Poetry,"  etc.) 

36.  CONDILLAC,  E.  B.     (Euvres.     Paris,   1798.     (Vol.  7,  pp.  337-423 : 

Traite  de  Part  d'ecn're.     Pp.  429-443,  a  separate  treatise  :    Dis- 
sertation siir  r/iannoiiie  dii  style.) 

37.  Constable,  J.     Reflections  on  Accuracy  of  Style.     London,  1734. 

38.  *CooK,  A.  S.      The   Bible   and  English   Prose   Style.      Boston, 

Heath,  1892. 

39.  *CoOK,  A.  S.      The  Touchstones  of  Poetry.      Selected  from  the 

Writings  of  Matthew  Arnold  and  John  Ruskin.     Privately  printed 
[San  Francisco]  [1887]. 

40.  Crawshaw,  W.  H.     The  Interpretation  of  Literature.     New  York, 

Macmillan,  1896. 

41.  *  Demetrius.     On  Style,  ed.  W.  Rhys  Roberts.     Cambridge  Uni- 

versity Press,  1902. 

42.  Dennis,  J.     Style.     Time.     (Vol.  13,  p.  71.) 

43.  *De  Quincey,  T.     Essays  on  Style,  Rhetoric,  and  Language,  ed. 

F.  N.  Scott.     Boston,  Allyn  &  Bacon,  1893. 

44.  Diderot,  D.     Thoughts  on  Art  and  Style,  selected  and  translated 

by  Beatrix  Tollemache.     London,  Rivingtons,   1904.     (Reviewed 
in  Nation,  Oct.  6,  1904,  Vol.  79,  p.  279.) 

45.  *Dionysius  OF  Halicarnassus.     The  Three  Literary  Letters,  ed., 

with    English  translation    [etc.],    by    W.  Rhys  Roberts.     Cam- 
bridge University  Press,  1901. 

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98.  Long,  G.    An  Old  Man's  Thoughts  about  Many  Things.    London, 

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125.  Renton,  W.     The  Logic  of  Style.     London,  Longmans,  1874. 

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ADDENDA 

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(Note  the  further  investigation  promised  at  the  end  of  the  ar- 
ticle, p.  94.) 
170  Tytler,  a.  F.,  Lord  Woodhouselee.  Essay  on  the  Principles 
of  Translation  (1791).  Lately  reissued  in  Everyman's  Li- 
brary, London,  Dent. 


CONTENTS 

FAOB 

Preface vii 

Bibliography xiii 

I.     Introduction:   Wackemagel's  Theory  of  Prose  and  of 

Style I 

II.     Plato  :  from  the  Phsedrus 23 

III.  Aristotle:  from  the  Rhetoric 52 

IV.  LoNGiNUS:  On  the  Sublime 97 

V.     Swift  :  from  A  Letter  to  a  Young  Clergyman         .         .  160 

VI.     BuFFON :  Discourse  on  Style 169 

VII.    Voltaire:  Style 180 

VIII.     Goethe:  Simple  Imitation  of  Nature  ;  Manner;  Style  192 

IX.     Coleridge:  On  Style 199 

X.     De  Quincey  :  Style  (Part  IV) 209 

XI.     Thoreau  :  from  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack 

Rivers 245 

XII.     Schopenhauer:  On  Style 251 

XIII.  Spencer:  The  Philosophy  of  Style       ....  270 

XIV.  Lewes  :  The  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature  (Chapters 

V,  VI) 312 

XV.     Stevenson:  On  Some  Technical  Elements  of  Style  in 

Literature 364 

XVI.     Pater:  Style 386 

XVII.     Bruneti^re:  The  French  Mastery  of  Style           .         .  414 

XVIII.     Harrison:  On  English  Prose 435 

Index 453 


THEORIES   OF   STYLE   IN 
LITERATURE 

I.     INTRODUCTION 

WILHELM   WACKERNAGEL  (1806-1869) 

Selections  from  Poetics,  Rhetoric,  and  the  Theory  of    Style 
(1836-1837) 

[Translated  from  Poetik,  Rhetorik  und  Stilistik,  Academische  Vorle- 
sungen,  herausgegeben  von  Ludwig  Sieber,  2.  Auflage,  Halle,  1888.  (Pp. 
309-316;  409-421.) 

Karl  Heinrich  Wilhelm  Wackernagel,  a  gifted  scholar 
and  man  of  letters,  trained  in  exacter  studies  under  the  phi- 
lologist Lachmann,  but  of  broader  development  and  more 
artistic  bent  than  his  master,  is  better  known  for  his  History 
0}  German  Literature  than  for  his  lectures  on  literary  theory 
in  general.  However,  these  lectures,  iirst  given  ( 1836-183 7) 
early  in  his  long  career  as  professor  at  the  University  of 
Basel,  Switzerland,  and  frequently  revised  by  him  for  sub- 
sequent delivery,  —  though  not  for  other  pubhcation,  —  are 
by  no  means  the  least  of  his  many  contributions  to  scholar- 
ship. Based  not  only  upon  a  wide  scholarly  acquaintance 
with  ancient  and  modern  literatures  and  literary  theory, 
but  also  upon  the  intuitions  and  experience  of  one  who  was 
himself  a  talented  writer,  —  for  Wackernagel  was  no  mere 
abstract  pedant,  —  his  treatment  of  Poetics,  Rhetoric,  and 
the  Theory  0}  Style  may  count  as  one  of  the  most  consistent 
and  acceptable  attempts  in  recent  times  to  systematize  a 
body  of  knowledge  which  is  usually  considered   piecemeal 


2  THEOKIES    OF  STYLE   L\  LITERATURE 

and  without  correlation.  If  this  seem  sweeping  praise,  at 
all  events  the  work  deserves  to  be  better  known,  for  example 
among  our  rhetoricians;  and  there  might  be  advantage  in 
presenting  certain  portions  of  it  merely  as  evidence  that 
the  Germans  have  not  after  all  been  wholly  inattentive  to 
literary  form,  "Since  Heine,"  says  Mr.  Frederic  Harrison, 
playfully,  "Germans  .  .  .  have  no  style  at  all." 

Wackernagcl's  style  is  that  of  the  effective  university 
lecturer,  clear,  logical,  full  of  matter,  with  obvious  transi- 
tions and  not  too  condensed;  repeating  under  varying  form 
what  is  essential,  yet  with  less  concealment  of  the  repetition 
than  is  usual  in  a  page  meant  simply  for  the  eye  of  a  reader. 
We  must  bear  in  mind  that  the  selections  are  from  a  posthu- 
mous work,  not  prepared  for  the  press  by  its  own  author. 
Finally,  it  would  be  unfair  to  judge  the  merits  of  the  original 
on  the  strength  of  a  translation. 

An  account  of  Wackernagel's  life,  of  his  early  struggles,  his 
rapid  rise  as  a  teacher,  his  powerful  influence  on  his  pupils, 
his  rich  and  varied  scholarship,  and  his  ventures  in  the 
field  of  original  poetry,  will  be  found  in  an  article  by  Edw. 
Schroder  in  the  Allgemeine  deutsche   Biographie,  Vol.  40.] 

[On  the  Distinction  between  Rhetoric  and  the  Theory  of  Style] 

Rhetoric  has  long  been  a  word  of  quite  indefinite  and 
variable  meaning,  its  signification  being  now  extremely 
limited  and  again  improperly  extended.^ 

Inasmuch  as  prjrwp  meant  to  them  an  orator  and  a 
teacher  of  oratory,  the  ancients  understood  by  rhetoric 
simply  the  art  and  theory  of  persuasive  speaking;  so  Aris- 
totle considered  it ;  ^  and  he,  as  he  was  the  father  of  poetics, 
may  likewise  be  called  the  father  of  rhetoric.  Correspond- 
ing, then,  to  the  aim  of  a  complete  and  exhaustive  discipline 
for  orators,  the  ancients  included  in  the  subject  not  merely 
all  that  concerns  the  orator  as  such,  but  also,  necessarily, 
much  that  the  art  of  the  orator  has  in  common  with  that  of 


INTKODUCl^ION :    IVACKERNAGEL  3 

the  master  of  prose  in  general,  and  even  with  that  of  the  poet; 
all  manner  of  things,  in  fact,  that  condition  the  presentation 
of  thought  through  the  medium  of  words. 

Under  rhetoric,  accordingly,  they  taught  not  merely  how 
to  construct  a  "speech"  and  what  means  further  the  specific 
ends  of  oratory,  but  they  gave  directions  also  about  propriety 
and  beauty  of  expression,  about  the  formation  of  periods, 
about  euphony  in  word  grouping,  about  embellishment  with 
metaphors  and  tropes;  in  short,  about  an  endless  variety 
of  matters  that  pertain  quite  as  much  to  a  philosophic  trea- 
tise, to  a  historical  narrative,  and  to  an  epic,  lyric,  or  dra- 
matic poem,  as  to  an  oration.  Under  rhetoric  they  included 
also  the  theory  of  style,  though  not  as  if  the  rhetor  alone 
made  use  of  it,  but  because  it  was  common  property.  If, 
for  example,  they  had  been  led  to  put  together  a  treatise 
on  the  art  of  writing  history,  they  would  have  introduced 
their  theory  of  style  into  this  in  just  the  same  way.  Similarly, 
Aristotle  has  several  sections  on  style  in  his  Poetics? 

In  more  recent  times  this  coupling  of  the  theory  of  style 
with  rhetoric,  though  perfectly  justified  by  the  aim  of  the 
Greek  and  Latin  text-books  where  it  was  originally  met 
with,  has  given  rise  to  error  in  two  directions.  On  the  one 
hand,  because  the  laws  and  rules  of  style  have  an  applica- 
tion also  to  poetry,  the  word  rhetoric  has  been  stretched 
so  as  actually  and  expressly  to  include  the  theory  of  poetical 
discourse  as  well  as  prose;  so  that  in  this  case  rhetoric  is 
made  equivalent  to  the  whole  art  of  language,  in  the  broadest 
sense;  that  is,  the  art  of  poetical  as  well  as  prose  represen- 
tation, not  merely  the  art  of  prose  in  oratory.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  term  has  been  restricted  properly  enough  by  some 
to  the  art  of  expression  in  prose;  yet  in  this  case  the  rules 
of  style,  being  carried  over  en  masse,  have  been  treated  as 
if  they  all  counted  only  for  prose;    although  very  many  of 


4  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

them  are  valid  only  in  poetry  and  have  absolutely  no  appli- 
cation to  prose.  This  second  conception  of  rhetoric  is  the 
one  generally  current;  it  is  to  be  found  not  simply  in  text- 
books that  deal  with  rhetoric  exclusively,  but  also  in  such  as 
deal  with  rhetoric  and  poetics  together;  where,  accordingly, 
the  simple  fact  of  juxtaposition  might  have  brought  to  the 
authors'  notice  what  a  serious  blunder  it  was  to  subordinate 
the  doctrine  of  style  in  general  to  the  specific  theory  of  prose. 
How  thorough  and  widespread  the  confusion  thus  wrought 
in  the  latter  can  be  readily  seen  by  a  glance  at  the  table  of 
contents  in  any  ordinary  text-book  on  rhetoric,  where  head- 
ings relative  to  the  theory  of  prose  in  particular  and  others 
bearing  on  style  in  general  follow  one  another  in  the  most 
variegated  sort  of  cross-division. 

In  our  present  treatment  we  shall  understand  by  rhetoric 
something  more  than  the  pure  theory  of  oratory;  not  more, 
however,  than  the  theory  of  prose.  In  fact,  as  poetics  is 
the  theory  of  poetry,  so  we  may  consider  rhetoric  as  equiva- 
lent to  the  theory  of  prose.  It  is  true,  such  extension  and 
definition  of  the  word  are  not  entirely  sanctioned  on  grounds 
of  etymology;  still,  since  tradition  offers  no  other  term  that 
corresponds  exactly,  herein  we  must  follow  in  a  certain 
measure  the  authority  and  procedure  of  the  modern  text- 
books. But  all  that  lies  outside  the  realm  of  prose  as  such, 
in  the  region  where  prose  and  poetry  meet;  that  is  to  say, 
all  that  lies  in  the  field  of  style  —  all  rules  which  both  forms 
of  expression  have  in  common :  this  will  be  treated  separately 
under  the  head  of  Stylistics.* 

On  Prose  in  General 

Prose  is  the  direct,  as  it  were  the  ])olar,  o])])osite  of  poetry. 
It  is  the  expression  in  language  of  mental  perceptions  whose 
basis  is  in  the  intellect  and  whose  object-matter  is  truth: 


INTRODUCTION:    WACKERNAGEL  5 

that  intellect  which  in  the  productions  of  poetry  stands,  so  to 
speak,  in  the  background,  and  that  truth  which  is  acceptable 
to  poetry  only  in  so  far  as  it  is  beautiful.  Prose  is  the  form 
in  which  the  intellect  as  the  organ  of  scientific  curiosity  re- 
cords and  presents  its  experiences  and  opinions  —  its  knowl- 
edge; to  the  end  that  through  this  reproduction  the  intellect 
becoming  active  in  another  person  may  arrive  at  the  same 
knowledge.  In  so  far  the  common  characteristic  of  prose 
is  instruction;  by  nature  prose  is  didactic.  Poetry  directs 
itself  toward  what  is  good  and  what  is  true  only  in  so  far  as 
this  is  beautiful;  hence,  without  the  cooperation  of  feeling 
and  imagination  even  didactic  poetry  can  have  no  existence. 
Prose,  on  the  contrary,  needs  no  such  cooperation  and  media- 
tion. It  proceeds  simply  and  directly  from  intellect  to  in- 
tellect. Nor  is  that  which  the  intellect  recognizes  as  true, 
necessarily  beautiful  and  good;  where,  however,  it  is  beauti- 
ful and  good,  it  is  not  made  the  object  of  the  intellect's  con- 
templation on  that  account,  but  above  all  because  it  is  true. 
Prose,  then,  the  language  of  the  intellect,  is  a  representation 
of  what  is  good  and  beautiful  in  so  far  as  this  is  true,  and  of 
what  is  true  even  when  that  is  not  good  or  beautiful.  Conse- 
quently, the  language  of  prose  does  not  require  the  same 
beauty  of  form  as  the  language  of  poetry.  Only  in  poetry, 
only  where  some  perception  of  the  beautiful  as  such  is  to  be 
represented,  must  the  law  of  beauty  dominate  the  language 
—  the  law  which  demands  unity  in  multiplicity;  there,  and 
only  there,  exists  the  need  of  rhythmical  ordering  of  discourse 
in  verses  and  of  uniting  these  verses  in  strophes.  The  intel- 
lect, on  the  other  hand,  so  far  as  concerns  form  of  presenta- 
tion, asks  simply  for  intelligibility  —  for  clearness;  it  wishes 
no  more;  it  lays  stress  on  beauty  of  language  only  as  this 
may  promote  clearness  and  lighten  the  task  of  understanding. 
The  language  of  the  intellect  will,  indeed,  if  cuhured,  never 


6  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

leave  euphony  out  of  consideration,  yet  only  because  an  inti- 
mate relation  between  the  soul  and  the  senses  renders  the 
intellect  more  ready  to  reproduce  in  itself  any  proffered 
knowledge  when  such  knowledge  is  presented  in  a  way  that 
pleases  the  senses.  Only  within  these  narrow  limitations  is 
it  proper  in  connection  with  prose  to  speak  of  artistic  treat- 
ment or  of  the  art  of  elociuence.'^  To  that  supreme  richness 
of  euphony  which  is  peculiar  to  the  language  of  poetry,  and 
the  cause  of  which  lies  deeper  than  a  mere  flattery  of  the 
senses,  the  language  of  the  intellect  does  not  attain.  This 
language  is  just  what  it  is  called,  prosa,  oratio  prosa,  i.e. 
prorsa  —  proversa;  that  is,  it  moves  straight  forward,  without 
repetition  of  similar  rhythmical  arrangement,  without  any 
noticeable  return  of  the  language  upon  itself:  whereas  poetical 
language  is  called  oratio  versa.  Opposed  to  "linked"  lan- 
guage, to  oratio  alligata  metris  {oratio  ligata  is  an  unclassical 
expression),  stands  that  which  is  unfettered,  soluta;  this  and 
no  other  form  is  the  demand  of  the  intellect,  where  the  intel- 
lect speaks  and  speaks  to  its  like;  and  this  form  in  turn  de- 
mands and  endures  no  content  other  than  an  intellectual. 
In  purely  intellectual  didactic  poems  the  poetical  form  is  no 
less  a  defect  than  is  the  prose  form  in  a  drama:  in  both  cases 
the  incongruity  destroys  that  interdependence  which  ought 
always  to  exist  between  form  and  matter. 

So  much  on  prose  in  general  and  on  the  difference  between 
it  and  poetry.  It  is  in  order  now  to  speak  of  the  age  and 
origin  of  prose.  This  will  furnish  opportunity  for  enumerat- 
ing and  describing  the  main  varieties  of  prose  language. 

In  all  ages  and  among  all  peoples  prose  as  a  literary  form 
is  a  later  development  than  poetry.*  Outside  of  literature, 
of  course,  ])rose  is  older,'  since  without  doubt  ])rose  conver- 
sation must  originally  have  preceded  the  composition  of 
verses.     Consi(k'red,   however,   as  a  form   of  representation 


INTRODUCTION:    WACKERNAGEL  7 

consciously  adapted  to  literary  ends,  prose  may  count  as  the 
younger  sister  or,  better,  the  daughter  of  poetry,  for  in  all 
cases  centuries  must  go  by  before  a  literary  prose  is  attained; 
there  are  in  existence  peoples  of  ancient  origin  that  possess 
none  yet.  A  literary  prose  arises  first  at  the  point  where  a  na- 
tion passes  out  of  the  stage  of  naive  simplicity  into  the  more 
conscious  life  of  an  artificial  civilization.  Up  to  this  point 
the  whole  literature  is  poetical:  history  is  known  only  in  the 
saga;  that  is,  there  is  no  prying  into  the  events  of  the  past 
for  the  naked  and  unadorned  truth;  there  is  retained  of  those 
events  only  the  poetically  garbed  idea  in  its  living  beauty; 
the  saga,  imaginative  in  its  very  nature,  assumes  also  an 
imaginative  outer  form,  as  ballad  or  as  song.  During  this 
stage  what  Tacitus  says  of  the  ancient  Germans  holds  good 
for  all  races:  " Their  traditional  songs  are  their  one  and  only 
species  of  record  and  chronicle."  ^  The  intellect  itself  con- 
tinues more  or  less  submerged  in  poetry;  its  instruction  is 
given  such  a  relation  to  imagination  and  feeling  as  to  border 
on  poetical  vision.  This  we  have  already  at  some  length 
shown  to  be  the  case  with  the  didactic  epic  and  the  didactic 
lyric. ^  In  these,  even  where  the  attempt  is  essentially  unsuc- 
cessful, the  particular  doctrine  inculcated  must  put  up  with 
at  least  the  external  semblance  of  poetry;  so  little  suspicion 
is  there  as  yet  of  any  other  form  of  exposition.  At  this  stage 
even  legal  maxims,  for  example,  are  put  in  meter,  and  always 
with  a  certain  poetical  coloring  in  the  diction.  We  have 
frequent  testimony  concerning  the  existence  of  such  saws 
among  Hellenic  and  Celtic  tribes ;  and  instances  enough  are 
preserved  for  us  in  the  case  of  the  Germans. 

Little  by  little,  however,  the  crucial  point  approaches, 
and  at  length  the  intellect  comes  to  a  consciousness  of  its 
right  and  property  in  literature.  Growing  displeased  with 
what  fancy  has  made  out  of  history,  it  finally  rejects  fancy 


8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

altogether,  and  will  set  to  work  with  no  coadjutor  but  pure 
memory.  Concerning  itself  with  truth  alone,  it  disdains  no 
detail  of  history  whatsoever.  Accordingly,  materials  are 
amassed,  and,  with  the  necessity  of  a  more  convenient  and 
less  artificial  form  of  expression,  comes  the  discovery  that 
such  a  form  is  likewise  more  appropriate.  Thus,  then,  out  of 
epic  poetry  is  developed  one  main  variety  of  prose,  namely, 
narrative  or  historical.  Similarly,  in  didactic  poetry  it  be- 
comes gradually  more  and  more  evident  how  unsuitable, 
and  how  cramping  to  the  matter,  are  the  poetical  point  of  view 
and  outer  form  in  the  majority  of  cases  —  how  much  more 
briefly  one  thing  might  be  stated,  how  much  more  exactly 
another  amplified,  how  much  more  clearly  and  intelligibly 
both  might  be  expressed,  if  only  the  prose  form  were  chosen. 
As  social  life  and  political  organization  grow  more  and  more 
complex,  as,  perhaps,  moral  corruption  becomes  greater  and 
greater,  the  few  old  maxims  in  metrical  garb  no  longer  sufhce; 
there  is  need  of  a  greater  number,  more  carefully  elaborated : 
and  so  to  didactic  poetry  is  added  didactic  prose. 

Besides  all  this,  one  external  circumstance  must  not  be 
overlooked,  since  it  has  everywhere  contributed  to  support 
and  hasten  the  evolution  of  prose,  both  historical  and  didac- 
tic. The  art  of  writing,  which  the  present  age  of  advanced 
civilization  is  continually  spreading,  was  in  earlier  times, 
even  when  well  known,  much  less  confidently  relied  on. 
Hence  it  was  necessary  in  the  case  of  narratives  and  teach- 
ings, the  preservation  of  which  was  desirable,  to  intrust  them 
to  the  more  easily  remembered  form  of  poetry.  On  the  other 
hand,  l)y  a  natural  reaction,  writing  tended  not  to  come  into 
vogue,  simply  because  there  was  another  satisfactory  way  of 
preserving  everything.  In  a  higher  stage  of  culture  we  find 
a  corresponding  relation  of  action  and  reaction  between  writ- 
ing and  prose :  writing,  on  account  of  its  greater  convenience, 


INTRODUCTION:    WACKERNAGEL  9 

making  prose  possible,  because  the  preservation  of  the  latter 
cannot  be  so  safely  left  to  the  unaided  memory;  again,  prose 
once  in  existence,  the  need  of  employing  the  pen  increases. 

Historical  or  narrative,  and  didactic  or  expository,  these 
are  the  two  chief  varieties  into  which  this  second  form  of 
representation  ^"  through  the  medium  of  language  is  to  be 
divided.  The  origin  and  goal  of  both  varieties  is  the  intel- 
lect ;  the  aim  of  both,  the  production  and  reproduction  of  a 
knowledge  of  the  true.  To  what  extent,  however,  the  two 
other  faculties  of  the  soul,  namely,  imagination  and  feeling, 
play  a  part  in  prose,  and  what  activity  can  properly  be  allotted 
them,  may  be  considered  to  better  advantage  in  a  closer 
examination  of  the  two  varieties  in  question.  To  this  survey 
we  shall  now  proceed.     [See   Wackernagel,  pp.  316  ff.] 

Stylistics 

Without  repeating  what  has  been  said^*  (pp.  3-4)  concerning 
the  usual  confusion  of  rhetoric  and  the  theory  of  style,  we  may 
call  attention  again  to  an  observation  that  obtruded  itself 
when  we  began  the  discussion  of  poetics.  It  can  never  be 
the  aim  of  a  theory  of  poetry  or  rhetoric  to  turn  a  student  of 
that  theory  or  the  reader  of  a  text-book  into  a  poet  or  an 
orator.  The  teacher,  or  the  writer  of  the  text-book,  if  wise 
and  conscientious,  will  attempt  to  consider  poetry  and  prose 
simply  as  they  exist  for  us  in  literature,  from  the  standpoint 
of  the  laws  that  govern  them;  to  bring  these  laws  into  clearer 
view,  and  thereby  to  facilitate  our  appreciation,  to  increase 
our  enjoyment,  and  to  make  our  judgment  more  sharp  and 
sure.  If,  then,  among  the  hearers  or  readers  there  be  any 
one  on  whom  God  has  bestowed  the  gift  of  poetry  or  elo- 
quence, to  such  a  one  the  theoretical  instruction  will  be  of 
double  value,  for  he  will  have  also  a  practical  advantage  from 
it;  such  a  one  the  teacher  of  poetics  or  of  rhetoric  will  help  tc 


lO  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

develop.  Bill  U)  make  a  poet  or  an  orator  of  a  man  who  is  not 
one  to  begin  with,  is  impossible  for  the  teacher  or  anybody  else. 

With  the  theory  of  style  the  case  is  similar.  It  is  true,  this 
theory  does  not  concern  itself  with  matters  so  profound  as  do 
poetics  and  rhetoric.  Its  object  is  the  surface  of  linguistic 
expression;  not  the  idea,  not  the  material,  but  simply  the 
outer  form  —  the  choice  of  words,  the  construction  of  sen- 
tences. And  external  things  like  these,  one  might  suppose, 
could  well  be  taught,  so  as  to  be  learned  once  for  all.  Yet 
style,  to  tell  the  truth,  is  no  mere  mechanical  handicraft: 
the  linguistic  forms  with  which  the  art  of  style  has  to  do  are 
conditioned  in  the  most  necessary  way  by  matter  and  mean- 
ing. Style  is  no  lifeless  mask  laid  upon  the  substance  of 
thought:  it  is  the  living  play  of  the  countenance,  the  play  of 
living  feature,  produced  by  the  expressive  soul  within.  Or, 
again,  it  is  simply  an  investiture  of  the  substance,  a  drapery; 
yet  the  folds  of  the  drapery  are  caused  by  the  posture  of  the 
limbs  that. the  drapery  veils,  and  it  is  the  soul,  once  more, 
that  alone  has  given  the  limbs  such  and  such  movement  and 
position.  Accordingly,  in  a  discussion  of  the  theory  of  style 
we  must  neither  promise  nor  expect  more  than  in  a  treatment 
of  poetics  or  rhetoric.  With  reference  to  style,  also,  the  aim 
can  be  only  a  theoretical  explanation  of  literary  material 
already  existent;  nor  can  the  theorist  ])ropose  to  do  more 
than  awaken  a  reasonable  and  conscious  appreciation  in  the 
student  and  educate  his  power  of  criticism.  So  far  as  con- 
cerns actual  practice  he  can  wish  to  further  only  the  rare  in- 
dividual who,  having  a  rich  fund  of  l)eautiful  ideas,  jjossesses 
also  an  inborn  sense  for  the  Ijcauty  of  external  form.  For 
everyone  else  all  rules  have  only  a  negative  value.  They  can 
teach  us  what  not  to  do  —  never  positively  what  to  do. 

With  these  few  words  by  way  of  introduction  we  can  now 
CO  on  to  the  main  discussion. 


INTRODUCTION:    WACKERNAGEL  II 

I.    On  Style  in  General 

As  is  well  known,  the  word  style  has  its  origin  in  Greek, 
passing  thence  into  Latin,  and  through  the  latter  coming  at 
length  to  us.  The  Greek  original  signifies  a  uniform  rectilinear 
body  of  greater  length  than  thickness:  crrOXo?  means  a 
wooden  pile,  a  stone  pillar,  finally,  a  metallic  graver  for  writ- 
ing and  drawing.  In  meaning,  as  well  as  by  derivation,  it 
corresponds  to  our  [German]  word  Stiel.  The  Latins  adopted 
it  chiefly  in  the  latter  signification  of  graver;  their  language 
wanting  the  sound  of  upsilon,  they  spelled  the  word  stilus. 
With  them,  not  with  the  Greeks,  the  literal  meaning  was  de- 
veloped figuratively,  and  by  style  was  signified,  first,  what  we 
also  express  metaphorically  by  the  word  hand,  and  the  Latins 
at  times  by  manus  —  that  is,  a  characteristic  way  of  making 
letters;  second,  still  more  figuratively,  a  characteristic  manner 
of  dressing  thought  in  words;  one  finds  the  usage  as  early 
as  Terence,*-  Cicero,'^  and  others.  We  have  a  similar  way  of 
referring  to  "  a  clever  pen,"  or  in  the  art  of  painting  to  "  a 
delicate  brush  "  or  "  the  brush  of  Apclles."  It  is  in  the 
latter,  metaphorical  sense  that  we  are  in  the  habit  of  using 
the  word  style,  or,  since  we  have  borrowed  it  from  the  Ro- 
mans, stile.  However,  we  have  made  its  application  wider 
than  the  Hteral  signification  warrants.  Throughout  the  entire 
range  of  art  —  painting,  sculpture,  music,  etc.  —  we  speak 
of  style,  wherever  an  inner  peculiarity  shows  itself  in  the 
outward  representation  through  characteristic  marks.  Thus 
we  speak,  for  example,  of  the  Romance  style  in  architecture, 
or  of  the  style  of  Raphael  or  Sebastian  Bach.  And  the  ar- 
tists in  general  and  without  further  qualification  say,  for 
instance,  of  an  ordinary  vessel,  "  It  has  style,"  **  if  the  thing 
answer  its  purpose,  and  be  beautiful,  and  at  the  same  time 
show  a  certain  distinctive  peculiarity  of  form.     In  particular, 


12  THEORIES   OE  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

however,  we  employ  the  word  style  with  regard  to  expression 
in  language,  whether  j)rose  or  poetical.  The  term  manner 
of  writing  is  synonymous;  synonymous,  yet  not  equivalent: 
style  one  may  say  under  all  circumstances,  but  not  under  all 
circumstances  manner  oj  writing.  With  reference  to  an  essay 
one  may  speak  of  the  author's  manner  oj  writing  as  well  as 
of  the  style ;  with  reference  to  a  sermon  or  song  it  is  not 
proper  to  speak  of  the  manner  of  writing  even  when  the  thing 
lies  wriUen  before  us  and  is  actually  neither  spoken  nor  sung. 
Where  it  is  a  question  of  reproduction  or  appreciation,  the 
sermon  must  be  considered  as  spoken,  the  song  as  sung. 

If,  then,  the  word  style  is  to  be  defined  more  sharply  with 
particular  reference  to  representation  in  language,  this  can 
be  done  about  as  follows:  Style  is  the  mode  of  representation 
in  language,  conditioned  partly  by  the  psychological  pecu- 
liarities of  the  one  who  represents,  partly  by  the  matter  and 
purpose  of  what  is  represented.  This  definition  is  neither 
too  broad  nor  too  restricted.  It  is  broad  enough  to  include 
the  various  applications  of  the  word  reasonably  possible 
within  the  range  of  literature,  whether  one  has  in  mind, 
say,  dramatic  style  in  general,  or  the  dramatic  style  of  the 
Greeks,  or,  again,  the  style  of  a  single  dramatist  like  ^schylus. 
It  is  not,  however,  so  elastic  as  a  rather  commonly  accepted 
definition  which  makes  an  altogether  arbitrary  distinction 
between  style  and  manner  of  writing,  and  for  the  sake  of  this 
distinction  includes  in  the  conception  of  style  matters  that 
belong  by  right  to  poetics,  rhetoric,  or  even  logic.  Accord- 
ing to  the  distinction  in  cjuestion,  style  is  the  way  in  which  a 
pei-son  shapes,  arranges,  and  puts  down  his  thoughts  for  the 
attainment  of  a  specific  end;  whereas  manner  of  writing, 
being  the  way  in  which  he  selects  and  combines  words,  con- 
sidered purely  as  audible  elements  of  expression,  concerns  only 
the  relation  borne  by  the  discourse  to  the  demands  of  euphony 


INTRODUCTION:    WACKERNAGEL  1 3 

and,  possibly,  sentence  structure.  All  this,  however,  gives 
more  to  style  and  less  to  manner  of  writing  than  is  allowable. 
Our  definition,  proposed  above,  will  find  its  best  justifica- 
tion as  we  amplify  further.  In  that  definition  we  have 
affirmed  that  the  mode  of  representation  is  conditioned  partly 
by  the  psychological  peculiarities  of  the  one  who  represents, 
partly  by  the  matter  and  purpose  of  what  is  represented ;  that 
is,  to  put  it  in  other  words  and  more  briefly,  style  has  a  sub- 
jective ^^  and  an  objective  side.  For  example,  let  us  take  Herder's 
academic  address '®  on  geography.  Here  the  style,  the  mode 
of  representation,  is  on  the  one  hand  conditioned  objectively 
by  matter  and  purpose:  by  the  matter,  that  is,  first  by  the 
ruling  idea  of  the  theme,  namely,  the  utility  and  attractiveness 
of  geographical  studies,  and  secondly  by  the  substance  as  a 
whole,  the  entire  material  of  thought  with  which  the  one 
main  idea  surrounds  itself;  by  the  purpose,  in  so  far  as  the 
attempt  is  made  to  win  over  the  audience,  and  just  that  sort 
of  an  audience  —  scholars  and  teachers  and  their  assembled 
friends  —  to  the  recognition  and  support  of  this  idea,  and  in 
so  far  as  the  particular  thoughts  that  are  here  brought  together 
have  been  ordered  in  accordance  with  this  purpose  for  an 
address,  and,  specifically,  for  an  address  given  before  a 
school.  Objectively  considered,  therefore,  the  whole  has  the 
style  of  an  academic  address  on  geography.  To  a  certain 
extent,  then,  this  address  has  something  in  common  with  every 
other  address  ever  given,  or  ever  to  be  given,  on  the  like  theme 
before  such  an  audience.  What  distinguishes  it  from  every 
other  and  makes  it  Herder's  address  is  the  subjective  side  of 
the  style,  the  mode  in  which  Herder  alone,  just  because  he 
had  his  particular  mind  and  training,  and  lived  in  a  particular 
age,  put  his  thoughts  into  language  —  his  mode  of  clothing 
and  embellishing  his  ideas  and  of  ordering,  separating,  and 
unitins:  his  words. *^ 


14  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Necessarily,  of  course,  both  sides  always  belong  together : 
they  are  not  and  must  not  be  disjoined,  for  they  are  one  and 
the  same  thing  —  the  outer  form  of  language,  merely  viewed 
from  different  standpoints;  and,  in  a  healthy  and  well-con- 
ceived composition,  it  is  impossible  that  either  should  exist 
alone.  A  composition  that  has  only  objectivity  of  style  — 
unfortunately  there  are  too  many  such  —  if  one  can  succeed 
in  reading  it,  makes  the  same  unsatisfactory  impression  as 
lack  of  character  makes  everywhere.  Both  sides  must  be 
present,  both  in  the  right  organic  relation;  now  more  of  the 
one,  now  more  of  the  other,  the  excess  or  diminution  being 
conditioned  at  every  instant  by  the  content,  according  as 
that  is  of  a  more  subjective  or  more  objective  nature.  Simply 
on  this  depends  the  greater  or  lesser  subjectivity  or  objectivity 
of  the  outer  expression,  that  is  to  say,  of  the  style.  In  the 
epic  poet,  since  his  very  point  of  view  demands  the  utmost 
objectivity,  since  he  does  not  draw  his  idea  and  material 
from  within,  but  takes  them  into  himself  entirely  from  with- 
out, the  outer  representation  also  —  the  style  —  will  be  found 
praiseworthy  when  the  subjective  element  is  reduced  to  a 
minimum ;  for  this  element  could  show  itself  extensively  only 
in  case  the  poet  had  been  unduly  subjective  in  his  point  of 
view.  On  the  other  hand,  no  one  will  censure  the  lyric  poet 
if  in  his  songs  it  be  hard  to  discover  the  general  style  of  all 
lyric  poetry  —  that  is,  the  objective  side  —  in  the  presence  of 
the  peculiarities  of  his  individual  lyric  strain.  The  more 
individual,  the  more  akin  to  his  innermost  temperament,  or 
in  other  words  the  more  truly  lyric,  his  conceptions,  just  so 
much  more  of  the  subjective  may  he,  nay,  must  he,  give  to  the 
outward  expression  of  his  concei)tions. 

But  the  art  of  observing  measure  and  limit  in  this  matter 
is  bestowed  only  on  a  few  elect.  In  ])()int  of  style,  writers 
but   seldom  ch'sjjlay  the  right  natural   and   artistic  relation 


hVTR OD i  'C r/OiV :    II \4  CA'ERNA  GEL  I  5 

between  subjectivity  and  objectivity.  The  large  majority 
border  on  colorless  lack  of  character.  Others,  however, 
whether  through  vanity  or  through  a  vivacity  of  spirit  which 
they  cannot  control,  are  driven  to  the  opposite  extreme,  where 
their  subjectivity  preponderates  to  excess.  Such  dispropor- 
tion in  the  blending  of  style  causes  what  we  call  mannerism; 
just  as  we  speak  of  mannerism  in  painting  and  sculpture 
the  moment  we  meet,  in  line  and  composition,  elements  that 
have  no  foundation  in  the  object  represented,  that  are  really 
foreign  to  it,  having  their  origin  purely  in  the  temper,  caprice, 
and  acquired  habit  of  the  artist.  They  betray  mannerism, 
therefore,  who  subordinate  the  object  to  their  own  subjective 
natures,  where  they  should  rather  subordinate  their  own  na- 
tures to  the  object :  for  example,  among  the  Greeks,  yEschy- 
lus  —  whose  mannerism  Aristophanes  ridicules  in  the  Frogs 
—  in  contrast  to  the  true  style  of  Sophocles,  and  the  lack  of 
character  in  Euripides;  among  the  Latins,  Tacitus ;  among  the 
mediaeval  German  poets.  Wolfram  von  Eschenbach ;  among 
the  prose  writers  of  recent  times,  Johannes  von  Miiller  and 
Jean  Paul.  I  have  intentionally  taken  examples  where 
mannerism  is  simply  a  result  of  overmastering  spiritual  po- 
tency in  the  author,  and  a  result  unconscious,  for  the  most 
part,  to  the  producer;  writers  who  in  other  respects  belong 
among  the  first  in  all  ages,  and  who,  each  in  his  own  field, 
would  easily  be  the  very  first,  could  they  have  kept  free 
from  the  reproach  of  mannerism.  A  peculiar  and  distinctive 
manner  is,  indeed,  the  mark  of  an  unusual  author.  Those 
of  a  lower  order  go  to  no  such  lengths;  their  mental  indi- 
viduality is  too  trivial  to  preponderate  so  and  make  itself 
count  for  so  much  in  the  expression.  If  men  of  insignificant 
caliber  have  a  manner,  they  have  it  rather  from  imitation  of 
other,  greater  minds.  In  that  case  the  defect  is  double: 
for  if  the  mannerism  of  the  original  was,  after  all,  made  pos- 


l6  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

sible  only  by  derangement  of  a  proper  organic  relation,  it  at 
least  proceeded  from  a  living  organism;  in  the  imitation, 
however,  the  mannerism  sinks  to  a  purely  mechanical  artifice, 
a  mere  externality,  without  any  inner  principle  of  life.  The 
style  of  Johannes  von  Milller,  which,  for  all  its  warmth,  is 
somewhat  inflexible  and  harsh,  may  now  and  then  be  cum- 
bersome and  disturbing,  since  it  is  not  directly  conditioned 
by  the  matter ;  being,  in  fact,  manneristic,  it  often  hampers 
rather  than  furthers  the  intended  conception.  Nevertheless, 
considered  purely  from  the  subjective  side  and  given  its  due 
value  from  that  standpoint,  it  is  the  unconstrained,  inevitable 
expression  of  a  spirit  nourished  on  the  historians  of  antiquity 
and  matured  among  mediaeval  and  native  annalists.  But 
when  we  come  to  the  imitators  of  Johannes  von  Muller,  who, 
owing  to  their  lack  of  character,  artistic  or  otherwise,  are 
unable  to  achieve  a  style  —  not  to  speak  of  a  manner  —  of 
their  own ;  when  we  come,  for  example,  to  Zschokke  and  King 
Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  and  watch  them  copying  the  laconic  sen- 
tences of  Johannes  von  Muller,  his  abruptly  finished  clauses, 
his  inversions,  his  archaic  turns,  and  the  like,  we  are  aware, 
so  to  speak,  of  a  something  that  apes  the  gestures  of  a  man, 
yet  apes  them  unsuccessfully,  because  it  is  unconscious  of  any 
underlying  reason  and  purpose  for  its  action.  As  the  saying 
goes  in  Walletislein's  Lager,  they  have  caught  from  their 
leader  only  his  trick  of  hawking  and  spitting. 

It  is  of  the  subjective  side  of  style  that  Buffon's  well- 
known  dictum  holds:  The  style  is  the  man;  "  le  style  c'est 
I'homme."  ^*  The  subjective  side  is  the  individual  physiog- 
nomy, whereby  a  poet  or  historian,  however  strong  the  family 
likeness,  is  distinguishable  from  the  other  poets  or  historians 
of  his  time.  Upon  it  first  of  all,  accordingly,  grammatical 
and  aesthetic  criticism  must  fasten  their  glance,  where  there 
is  question  of  estimating  a  particular  author,  or  of  comparing 


INTRODUCTION:    IVACKERNAGEL  1 7 

and  distinguishing  several.  Hence,  to  recognize  the  subjec- 
tive side  is  a  service  the  greater,  the  more  objective  a  work  is 
in  its  own  nature  —  that  is  to  say,  the  more  the  styhstic 
utterance  of  the  writer's  subjectivity  is  repressed.  For  ex- 
ample, you  cannot  claim  that  only  a  dull  eye  would  fail  to 
see  in  the  Iliad  and  the  Niehelungenlied  that  these  poems  are 
the  product  of  a  number  of  different,  and  styhstically  different, 
authors;  for  the  individual  authors  were  all  such  good,  i.e. 
such  objective,  epic  poets,  that  the  subjective  side  of  their 
styles  is  necessarily  hidden  from  ordinary  observation.  On 
the  contrary,  you  cannot  help  praising  the  keen  eye  of  Wolf 
and  Lachmann,  since,  in  spite  of  all  difficulties,  they  perceived 
the  separate  individualities  of  style,  and  thus  recognized  and 
demonstrated  the  originally  composite  character  of  these 
heroic  poems. 

In  such  fashion  what  is  subjective  in  style  becomes  the 
object  of  a  criticism  of  individual  authors  and  works.  Natu- 
rally, however,  the  general  theory  of  style  cannot  enter  very 
deeply  into  that.  Its  business  is  rather  the  discovery  and 
explanation  of  universal  laws :  those  laws  that  govern  the  ex- 
pression in  language  not  merely  of  one  author,  indeed,  not 
merely  of  one  people  or  one  age,  but  of  all  authors  and  peo- 
ples in  all  ages.  These  universal  laws,  however,  lie  on  the 
objective  side :  in  a  region  where  style  is  conditioned,  not  by 
the  changing  personality  of  the  individual  who  represents, 
but  by  something  everywhere  of  similar  value  —  by  the  con- 
tent and  purpose  of  what  is  represented;  they  relate  to  the 
action  of  motives  which  each  individual  shares  with  all  others. 
Accordingly,  though  in  the  further  course  of  discussion  we 
may  be  led  to  touch,  incidentally,  upon  this  or  that  question 
of  pure  subjectivity,  as  a  whole  and  essentially  we  can  treat 
only  of  that  element  in  style  which  is  objective. 

Were  we  indeed  to  touch  immediately  on  one  or  two  topics 


1 8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   LV  LITERATURE 

of  such  incidental  sort,  wc  might  call  attention  to  a  passage 
(paragraph  76)  in  Jean  Paul's  Introduction  to  Msthetics, 
where  in  his  own  individual  style  he  briefly  characterizes  the 
individual  styles  of  a  number  of  other  authors;  the  passage 
may  serve  as  a  pattern  of  the  way  to  deal  with  these  matters. 
In  a  similar  passage  in  the  De  Oratore,  Cicero  gives  an  esti- 
mate of  various  Greek  and  Roman  writers,  including  himself : 
unquestionably  he  is  cooler  and  clearer  here  than  Jean  Paul; 
whether  he  is  as  strikingly  vivid  one  may  be  inclined  to  doubt. 
Looked  at  from  the  objective  side,  —  for  this  is  our  concern 
henceforth, — style,  or  the  mode  of  representation  in  lan- 
guage, is  conditioned,  as  we  have  said,  by  the  content  and 
purpose  of  the  matter  represented.  Content  and  purpose  can 
vary,  however,  accordingly  as  this  or  that  function  of  the  soul 
is  preponderantly  active  during  the  creation  of  the  content, 
and,  correspondingly,  as  the  particular  function  is  called  into 
activity  in  the  re-creation  of  that  content,  which  is  the  first 
purpose  of  all  representation.  Now  there  are  three  functions 
here  to  be  considered:  intellect,  imagination,  and  feeling. 
As  it  is  either  the  experiences  and  judgments  of  the  intellect, 
or  the  conceptions  of  the  imagination,  or  the  impulses  of  the 
feelings,  that  make  up  the  content  of  what  is  represented  in 
language;  so  also  in  the  representation  is  involved  the  pur- 
pose that  this  intelligible  knowledge,  or  these  images  of  the 
phantasy,  or  these  movements  of  the  feelings,  shall  in  similar 
wise  be  awakened  and  called  forth  in  the  hearer  or  reader, 
and  be  reproduced  in  his  soul  just  as  they  have  arisen  in  the 
soul  of  the  producing  author.  Hence  arises  first  a  threefold 
distinction  between  a  style  oj  the  intellect,  a  style  0}  the  imagi- 
nation, and  a  style  oj  the  jeelings.  But  therewith  is  indicated 
only  what  function  of  the  soul  in  any  given  case  is  active, 
here  in  the  author,  there  in  the  reader;  not,  however,  the 
nature  of  the  rej)rcsentation  which  lies,  so  to  speak,  between 


INTRODUCTION:    WACKERNAGEL  1 9 

these  two  persons  —  not  what  the  character  of  the  style  must 
be  in  each  case  in  order  to  serve  as  intermediary  between 
creation  and  re-creation.'"  Yet  with  respect  also  to  this  the 
distinctions  and  nomenclature  arise  readily  and  spontaneously. 
Where  creations  of  the  intellect  are  to  be  represented  for  the 
purpose  of  intelligible  reproduction,^"  the  demand  laid  upon 
the  representation  will  be  for  sharp  definiteness  and  easy  com- 
prehension, in  a  word,  for  clearness.^*  Where  creation  and 
reproduction  are  alike  the  business  of  the  imagination  —  that 
is,  of  the  function  of  the  soul  which  contemplates  the  idea 
under  the  forms  of  actual  reality  —  a  corresponding  sensuous- 
ncss  and  vividness  are  proper  to  the  style;  here  the  represen- 
tation must  be  vivid.  Finally,  where  the  sensibilities  or 
sympathies  of  the  creator  are  to  work  correspondingly  upon 
the  reproducer,  where  lighter  or  graver  impulses  of  joy  or  sor- 
row are  to  be  reflected  in  the  soul  of  the  latter,  there  the  rep- 
resentation which  is  to  bring  about  such  effect  must  bear  the 
impress  of  agitated  feeling;  it  must  be  impassioned.  Here- 
with, then,  we  should  have  three  main  varieties,  and  three  chief 
characteristics,  of  style :  the  style  of  the  intellect,  whose  char- 
acteristic is  clearness;  the  style  of  the  imagination,  whose 
characteristic  is  vividness;  the  style  of  the  emotions,  whose 
characteristic  is  passion. 

The  question  immediately  arises  how  such  triple  division 
of  the  kinds  and  characteristics  of  style  can  be  made  to  har- 
monize with  our  previous  dual  division  of  all  linguistic  ex- 
pression into  poetry  and  prose.^^  This  question  is  easily 
answered  in  the  following  way :  The  underlying  basis,  the 
beginning  and  the  end  of  all  poetry,  is  imagination;  the  func- 
tion of  poetry  is  to  image  ideas  in  the  forms  of  actually  existing 
reality.  This  is  the  exclusive  character  of  the  eldest  species 
of  poetry,  namely,  the  epic;  and  similarly  a  sensuous  and 
animated  imaging  is  the  essential  thing  in  the  highest  stage 


20  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  development  to  which  poetry  can  attain,  that  is,  in  the 
drama.  At  the  same  time  the  style  of  poetry  in  general,  and 
of  the  epic  and  the  drama  in  particular,  is  precisely  that  style 
of  the  imagination,  that  same  sensuous  mode  of  representation 
already  mentioned.  On  the  other  hand,  as  a  direct  opposite 
to  poetry,  stands  prose,  a  thing  in  its  essential  nature  as  unsen- 
suous  and  abstract,  as  poetry  is  instinct  with  pure  concrete 
sensuousness;  prose  directs  itself  toward  the  true,  whereas 
poetry  leans  toward  the  beautiful;  prose  aims  to  bring  new 
knowledge  to  the  intellect  —  its  first  and  last  purpose  is  to 
instruct.  Instructiveness  is  its  general  characteristic,  even 
though  a  further  division  has  to  distinguish  between  prose  in 
a  narrower  sense,  and  narration.  Accordingly,  since  prose 
is  the  form  for  intellectual  instruction,  as  didactic  and  narra- 
tive composition  it  appropriates  the  style  of  the  intellect,  and 
lays  paramount  claim  to  clearness  of  presentation. 

But  as  the  field  of  poetry  is  not  exhausted  by  the  epic  and 
the  drama,  neither  is  that  of  prose  by  didactic  writing  and 
narration.  In  either  field  there  remains  still  another  species; 
and  to  these  two  supplementary  species  of  poetry  and  prose, 
respectively,  falls  the  third  variety  of  style,  the  impassioned 
style  of  the  emotions.  We  refer,  among  the  species  of  poetry, 
to  the  lyric;  among  the  species  of  prose,  to  the  oration.  In 
the  lyric  we  find  poetry  overstepping  the  bounds  of  her  wonted 
realm  —  released  from  the  world  of  external  reality :  here 
the  poet  draws  the  material  for  the  embodiment  of  his  idea 
out  of  his  own  emotions;  it  is  his  own  inner  impulses  and  pas- 
sions that  the  lyric  poet  represents.  And  the  relation  borne 
by  lyric  to  the  other  forms  of  poetry  is  paralleled  by  that  borne 
by  oratory  to  the  other  forms  of  prose.  To  be  sure,  the  pri- 
mary affair  of  the  orator,  as  of  other  makers  of  prose,  is  to 
instruct  his  audience;  he  also,  just  as  the  didactic  essayist, 
must  establish  convincingly  some  definite  pro])osition.     Nev- 


INTRODUCTION:    IVACKERNAGEL  21 

ertheless  didactic  exposition  is  not  the  orator's  peculiar  and 
final  aim  :  it  is  rather  a  means  to  an  end ;  he  convinces  merely 
in  order  to  persuade.  The  goal  toward  which  all  his  instruc- 
tion tends  is  simply  the  arousing  of  a  sentiment,  and  by  and 
with  this  latter  a  determination  of  his  audience's  will.  Since, 
therefore,  to  awaken  sentiment  is  the  chief  and  continual 
business  of  the  orator  as  of  the  lyric  poet,  the  style  which  is 
peculiar  to  both  can  be  none  other  than  the  style  of  the  feel- 
ings, that  is,  the  mode  of  representation  which  is  impassioned. 

'  Compare  Hart's  Essentials  of  Prose  Composition,  p.  163. 

''Theoretically  Aristotle's  conception  is  somewhat  broader:  "Rhetoric 
may  be  defined  as  a  faculty  of  discovering  all  the  possible  means  of  persua- 
sion in  any  subject  "  {The  Rhetoric  of  Aristotle,  Welldon's  translation,  p.  10). 
Practically,  Wackernagel  is  justified  in  citing  Aristotle  ;  compare  Rhetoric, 
Book  III,  at  the  beginning  (below,  p.  53). 

^  See  below,  p.  59. 

*  The  term  stylistic,  or  stylistics,  is  rare  in  English;  in  general  it  may  be 
replaced  by  theory  of  style. 

*  Compare  Stevenson's  essay,  sections  3,  4  (below,  pp.  373-384). 
'  Note  Mr.  Harrison's  remarks  on  the  same  head  (below,  p.  444). 
'  The  translation  at  this  point  condenses  the  original  slightly. 

*  Tacitus,  Germania  2:  Carmina  antiqua  unum  apud  illos  memories  et 
annalirim  genus. 

®  \\'ackernagel,  Poctik,  etc.,  pp.  131,  201. 

'"  The  first,  of  course,  is  poetry. 

"  Wackernagel,  p.  309. 

^^  "  Andria,  prol.  12  {Menandri  Andria  et  Perinthia):  dissimili  oratione 
sunt  facta  ac  stilo;  {oratione  et  scriptura,  Phorm.  prol.  5)."  [Note  in 
Wackernagel.] 

^^  "  Brutus,  26,  100:  unus  sonus  est  totius  orationis  et  stilus ;  (ibid.  2=;,  96)." 
[Note  in  Wackernagel.]  Compare  Correspondence  of  Cicero,  ed.  Tyrrell  and 
Purser,  Vol.  5,  p.   170  (DCLXVIII.  2). 

"  Compare  Brunetiere,  below,  p.  418. 

'^  The  average  student  is  advised  to  look  up  the  meaning  of  the  words 
objective,  objectivity,  subjective,  subjectivity,  in  Funk  and  Wagnalls's  Standard 
Dictionary. 

'*  Mentioned  previously  by  Wackernagel,  Poctik,  etc.,  p.  363. 

'^  Here,  Wackernagel's  analysis  is  inadequate.  He  fails  to  recognize  that 
the  individual  or  subjective  element  in  style  is  conditioned  externally  in  three 


22  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

important  ways,  and  that  the  objective  side,  correspondingly,  presents  three 
phases  that  must  be  carefully  distinguished.  The  individual  style  varies, 
first  (I),  with  (a)  the  race,  (6)  nation,  (c)  dialect,  or  literary  school,  and 
{d)  family,  to  which  the  individual  writer  belongs.  Could  we  imagine  Herder 
as  born  (tf)  in  some  other  family  than  his  own,  or  (c)  in  Bavaria  instead  of 
East  Prussia,  or  (V)  in  France  instead  of  Germany,  or  (a)  in  Asia  instead  of 
Europe,  we  might  suppose  his  initial  tendencies  in  expression  to  be  un- 
changed, but  the  resultant  style  of  what  he  wrote  would  be  in  each  case  entirely 
different.  We  have,  then,  to  distinguish,  objectively,  (I)  between  racial 
style,  national  style,  style  of  the  dialect  or  school,  and  style  of  the  family. 
This,  we  observe,  is  largely  a  geographical  or  spatial  distinction.  Next  (II), 
there  is  a  distinction  that  is  essentially  temporal  —  a  variation  of  style  accord- 
ing to  historical  periods.  Had  Herder  lived  in  Luther's  time,  or  in  the  pres- 
ent, his  style,  though  retaining,  of  course,  certain  traits  discoverable  in  his 
national  literature  throughout  all  its  history,  would  necessarily  betray  the 
German  idiom  either  of  our  or  of  Luther's  day.  Finally  (HI),  the  individual 
style  varies  objectively  with  the  literary  genus  or  variety  of  production  which 
the  writer  attempts.  In  the  drama,  or  another  form  of  imaginative  produc- 
tion, Herder's  style,  though  still  preserving  the  marks  of  (I)  his  race,  nation, 
etc.,  and  (II)  of  his  period,  would  not  be  the  same  as  in  his  address  on  geog- 
raphy, which  is  mainly  scientific  and  intellectual.  Wackernagel  lays  undue 
emphasis  upon  this  third  condition,  as  if  it  alone  were  external,  and  includes 
race,  age,  etc.,  as  belonging  altogether  to  Herder's  own  personality.  Strictly 
considered,  the  individual  style  is  the  residuum  or  kernel  obtained  when  we 
strip  from  an  author  everything  that  is  not  peculiar  to  him  alone  — everything 
which  he  has  in  common  with  others:  the  idiom  of  his  language,  and  of  the 
particular  period  in  that  language  during  which  he  lives,  and  the  qualities 
of  style  which  inhere  "objectively"  in  the  forms  of  literature  that  he  essays. 

'*  Observe  the  customary  misquotation;   compare  below,  p.  179. 

'*  The  student  will  do  well  to  reread  this  statement  attentively. 

^^  I.e.  in  another  intellect. 

^'  Compare  the  ideal  of  Quintilian,  given  as  the  motto  of  this  volume. 

"  Wackernagel,  Poetik,  etc.,  p.  11. 


PLATO  23 

II 

PLATO    (B.C.  428-347) 
From  the  Phaedrus 

[From  The  Dialogues  oj  Plato,  translated  into  English  by  B.  Jowett,  M.A., 
Oxford,  The  Clarendon  Press;  New  York,  Macmillan,  1892,  Vol.  i  (pp. 
466-489). 

The  Phcedrus  is  one  of  several  Platonic  dialogues  in  which 
fundamental  questions  about  literature  are  discussed.  Others 
are  the  Ion,  Republic,  and  Symposium;  in  connection  with 
rhetoric,  more  especially  the  Gorgias.  The  Phcedrus  was 
probably  composed  after  the  Symposium,  when  Plato  was 
upwards  of  forty  years  old,  an  influential  university  teacher  — 
we  may  call  him  so,  although  of  his  activities  as  a  lecturer 
httle  is  definitely  known  —  and  an  assured  master  of  the 
imaginative  literary  form  in  which  his  doctrines  are  preserved 
for  us.  Regarding  this  dialogue  form,  as  opposed  to  the 
strict  prose  of  an  academic  lecturer,  we  must  always  remem- 
ber that  it  does  not  necessarily  transmit  to  us  in  a  given  case 
Plato's  actual,  so  to  speak,  scientific,  opinion  on  any  problem. 
Thus  in  the  Plmdriis,  we  must  observe,  the  discussion  of  "  the 
rules  of  writing  and  speech  "  represents  first  of  all,  not  Plato's 
own  theory,  but  a  theory  which  Plato's  imagination  puts  into 
the  mouth  of  Socrates;  even  though  Grote  in  this  particular 
instance  holds  that  "  the  theory  of  rhetoric  ...  is  far  more 
Platonic  than  Socratic  "  {Plato,  etc.,  1875,  Vol.  2,  p.  245). 
Were  it  true,  as  some  have  maintained,  that  the  PhcBdrus 
constituted  Plato's  inaugural  address  at  the  opening  of  his 
school  (see  Hirzcl,  Der  Dialog,  Vol.  i,  p.  245),  we  should  still 
expect  a  less  poetical  treatment  of  the  theory  in  his  everyday 
instruction. 

Neither  the  matter  nor  the  manner  of  Plato's  dialogue  is 
a  thing  to  be  disposed  of  in  a  cursory  note.  Plato's  style  is 
well  handled  by  M.  Alfred  Croiset  in  the  incomparable 
Histoire  de  la  Litterature  Grecque  of  MM.  A.  and  M.  Croiset 


24  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

(Vol.  4,  pp.  315-324).  It  is  treated  exhaustively  by  Wincenty 
Lutostawski  in  Ciiapter  III  of  his  Origin  and  Groivth  of  Plato's 
Logic  (1897,  pp.  64-193).  A  good  analysis  of  the  substance 
of  the  Phadrus  is  given  in  Jowett's  Introduction. 

The  English  version  of  Plato  by  the  Master  of  Balliol, 
though  not  unblemished  in  point  of  minute  scholarship, 
has  become  almost  a  recognized  classic  on  account  of  the 
translator's  style.  A  brief  estimate  of  this,  and  a  comparison 
of  the  third  with  the  first  edition,  may  be  consulted  in  the 
Nation  ioY  ]Vi\y  7,  1892  (Vol.  55,  p.  15);  Professor  Thomas 
D.  Seymour  has  a  more  extended  criticism  of  The  New  Edi- 
tion oj  Jowett's  Plato  in  the  Educational  Review,  Vol.  4  (1892), 
pp.  270-276. 

The  scene  of  the  Dialogue  is:  "  Under  a  plane-tree,  by  the 
banks  of  the  Ilissus."] 

Socrates.  A  lover  of  music  like  yourself  ought  surely 
to  have  heard  the  story  of  the  grasshoppers,  who  are  said  to 
have  been  human  beings  in  an  age  before  the  Muses.  And 
when  the  Muses  came  and  song  appeared  they  were  ravished 
with  delight;  and  singing  always,  never  thought  of  eating 
and  drinking,  until  at  last  in  their  forgetfulness  they  died. 
And  now  they  live  again  in  the  grasshoppers;  and  this  is  the 
return  which  the  Muses  make  to  them  —  they  neither  hun- 
ger, nor  thirst,  but  from  the  hour  of  their  birth  are  always 
singing,  and  never  eating  or  drinking ;  and  when  they  die 
they  go  and  inform  the  Muses  in  heaven  who  honors  them 
on  earth.  They  win  the  love  of  Terpsichore  for  the  dancers 
by  their  report  of  them :  of  Erato  for  the  lovers,  and  01  the 
other  Muses  for  those  who  do  them  honor,  according  to  the 
several  ways  of  honoring  them;  —  of  Calliope  the  eldest 
Muse  and  of  Urania  who  is  next  to  her,  for  the  philosophers, 
of  whose  music  the  grasshoppers  make  report  to  them;  for 
these  are  the  Muses  wlio  are  cliicfly  concerned  with  heaven 
and  thought,  divine  as  well  as  human,  and  they  have  the 


PLATO 


25 


sweetest  utterance.  For  many  reasons,  then,  we  ought  always 
to  talk  and  not  to  sleep  at  mid-day. 

Phadrus.     Let  us  talk. 

Soc.  Shall  we  discuss  the  rules  of  writing  and  speech 
as  we  were  proposing  ? 

Phddr.     Very  good. 

Soc.  In  good  speaking  should  not  the  mind  of  the  speaker 
know  the  truth  of  the  matter  about  which  he  is  going  to 
speak  ? 

Phcedr.  And  yet,  Socrates,  I  have  heard  that  he  who  would 
be  an  orator  has  nothing  to  do  with  true  justice,  but  only  with 
that  which  is  likely  to  be  approved  by  the  many  who  sit  in 
judgment;  nor  with  the  truly  good  or  honorable,  but  only 
with  opinion  about  them,  and  that  from  opinion  comes  per- 
suasion, and  not  from  the  truth. 

Soc.  The  words  of  the  wise  are  not  to  be  set  aside;  for 
there  is  probably  something  in  them ;  and  therefore  the  mean- 
ing of  this  saying  is  not  hastily  to  be  dismissed. 

PhcBdr.     Very  true. 

Soc.  Let  us  put  the  matter  thus:  —  Suppose  that  I  per- 
suaded you  to  buy  a  horse  and  go  to  the  wars.  Neither  of  us 
knew  what  a  horse  was  like,  but  I  knew  that  you  beheved  a 
horse  to  be  of  tame  animals  the  one  which  has  the  longest  ears. 

PhcEdr.    That  would  be  ridiculous. 

Soc.  There  is  something  more  ridiculous  coming:  —  Sup- 
pose, further,  that  in  sober  earnest  I,  having  persuaded 
you  of  this,  went  and  composed  a  speech  in  honor  of  an  ass, 
whom  I  entitled  a  horse,  beginning:  '  A  noble  animal  and  a 
most  useful  possession,  especially  in  war,  and  you  may  get 
on  his  back  and  tight,  and  he  will  carry  baggage  or  anything.' 

PhcEdr.     How  ridiculous  ! 

Soc.  Ridiculous  !  Yes;  but  is  not  even  a  ridiculous  friend 
better  than  a  cunning  enemy? 


26  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

PhcBdr.    Certainly. 

Soc.  And  when  the  orator  instead  of  putting  an  ass  in 
the  place  of  a  horse,  puts  good  for  evil,  being  himself  as  ig- 
norant of  their  true  nature  as  the  city  on  which  he  imposes 
is  ignorant ;  and  having  studied  the  notions  of  the  multitude, 
falsely  persuades  them  not  about  '  the  shadow  of  an  ass,' 
which  he  confounds  with  a  horse,  but  about  good  which  he  con- 
founds with  evil,  —  what  will  be  the  harvest  which  rhetoric 
will  be  likely  to  gather  after  the  sowing  of  that  seed  ? 

Phadr.    The  reverse  of  good. 

Soc.  But  perhaps  rhetoric  has  been  getting  too  roughly 
handled  by  us,  and  she  might  answer:  What  amazing  non- 
sense you  are  talking  !  As  if  I  forced  any  man  to  learn  to 
speak  in  ignorance  of  the  truth  !  Whatever  my  advice  may 
be  worth,  I  should  have  told  him  to  arrive  at  the  truth  first, 
and  then  come  to  me.  At  the  same  time  I  boldly  assert  that 
mere  knowledge  of  the  truth  will  not  give  you  the  art  of  persua- 
sion. 

Phadr.    There  is  reason  in  the  lady's  defence  of  herself. 

Soc.  Quite  true;  if  only  the  other  arguments  which  remain 
to  be  brought  up  bear  her  witness  that  she  is  an  art  at  all. 
But  I  seem  to  hear  them  arraying  themselves  on  the  opposite 
side,  declaring  that  she  speaks  falsely,  and  that  rhetoric  is  a 
mere  routine  and  trick,  not  an  art.  Lo  !  a  Spartan  appears, 
and  says  that  there  never  is  nor  ever  will  be  a  real  art  of  speak- 
ing which  is  divorced  from  the  truth. 

Phcedr.  And  what  are  these  arguments,  Socrates  ?  Bring 
them  out  that  we  may  examine  them. 

Soc.  Come  out,  fair  children,  and  convince  Phaedrus,  who 
is  the  father  of  similar  beauties,  that  he  will  never  be  able  to 
speak  about  anything  as  he  ought  to  speak  unless  he  have  a 
knowledge  of  philosophy.     And  let  Phaedrus  answer  you. 

Phcedr.     Put  the  question. 


PLA  TO 


27 


Soc.  Is  not  rhetoric,  taken  generally,  a  universal  art  of 
enchanting  the  mind  by  arguments ;  ^  which  is  practised 
not  only  in  courts  and  public  assemblies,  but  in  private  houses 
also,  having  to  do  with  all  matters,  great  as  well  as  small, 
good  and  bad  alike,  and  is  in  all  equally  right,  and  equally 
to  be  esteemed  —  that  is  what  you  have  heard  ? 

PhcBdr.  Nay,  not  exactly  that;  I  should  say  rather  that 
I  have  heard  the  art  confined  to  speaking  and  writing  in  law- 
suits, and  to  speaking  in  public  assemblies  —  not  extended 
farther. 

Soc.  Then  I  suppose  that  you  have  only  heard  of  the  rhet- 
oric of  Nestor  and  Odysseus,  which  they  composed  in  their 
leisure  hours  when  at  Troy,  and  never  of  the  rhetoric  of 
Palamedes  ? 

Phcedr.  No  more  than  of  Nestor  and  Odysseus,  unless 
Gorgias  is  your  Nestor,  and  Thrasymachus  or  Theodorus 
your  Odysseus. 

Soc.  Perhaps  that  is  my  meaning.  But  let  us  leave  them. 
And  do  you  tell  me,  instead,  what  are  plaintiff  and  defendant 
doing  in  a  law-court  —  are  they  not  contending  ? 

PhcBdr.     Exactly  so. 

Soc.  About  the  just  and  unjust  —  that  is  the  matter  in 
dispute  ? 

Phcedr.     Yes. 

Soc.  And  a  professor  of  the  art  will  make  the  same  thing 
appear  to  the  same  persons  to  be  at  one  time  just,  at  another 
time,  if  he  is  so  inclined,  to  be  unjust  ? 

Phcedr.     Exactly. 

Soc.  And  when  he  speaks  in  the  assembly,  he  will  make 
the  same  things  seem  good  to  the  city  at  one  time,  and  at  an- 
other time  the  reverse  of  good  ? 

Phcedr.    That  is  true. 

Soc.     Have  we  not  heard  of  the  Eleatic  Palam.edes  (Zeno), 


28  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IX  LITERATURE 

who  has  an  art  of  speaking  by  which  he  makes  the  same  things 
appear  to  his  hearers  hke  and  unhke,  one  and  many,  at  rest 
and  in  motion? 

Phcedr.     Very  true. 

Soc.  The  art  of  disputation,  then,  is  not  confined  to  the 
courts  and  the  assembly,  but  is  one  and  the  same  in  every 
use  of  language;  this  is  the  art,  if  there  be  such  an  art,  which 
is  able  to  find  a  likeness  of  everything  to  which  a  likeness  can 
be  found,  and  draws  into  the  light  of  day  the  likenesses  and 
disguises  which  are  used  by  others? 

Phcedr.     How  do  you  mean? 

Soc.  Let  me  put  the  matter  thus :  When  will  there  be  more 
chance  of  deception  —  when  the  difference  is  large  or  small? 

PhcBdr.     When  the  difference  is  small. 

Soc.  And  you  will  be  less  likely  to  be  discovered  in  passing 
by  degrees  into  the  other  extreme  than  when  you  go  all  at 
once? 

Phadr.    Of  course. 

Soc.  He,  then,  who  would  deceive  others,  and  not  be  de- 
ceived, must  exactly  know  the  real  likenesses  and  differences 
of  things  ? 

PhcBdr.     He  must. 

Soc.  And  if  he  is  ignorant  of  the  true  nature  of  any  subject, 
how  can  he  detect  the  greater  or  less  degree  of  likeness  in 
other  things  to  that  of  which  by  the  hypothesis  he  is  ignorant  ? 

Phcedr.     He  cannot. 

Soc.  And  when  men  arc  deceived  and  their  notions  are  at 
variance  with  realities,  it  is  clear  that  the  error  slips  in  through 
resemblances  ? 

Phcedr.     Yes,  that  is  the  way. 

Soc.  Then  he  who  would  be  a  master  of  the  art  must  un- 
derstand the  real  nature  of  everything;  or  he  will  never 
know  either  how  to  make  the  gradual  departure  from  truth 


PLA  TO  29 

into  the  opposite  of  truth  which  is  effected  by  the  help  of  re- 
semblances, or  how  to  avoid  it  ? 

PhcEdr.     He  will  not. 

Soc.  He  then,  who  being  ignorant  of  the  truth  aims  at 
appearances,  wnll  only  attain  an  art  of  rhetoric  which  is  ridicu- 
lous and  is  not  an  art  at  all  ? 

PhcBdr.    That  may  be  expected. 

Soc.  Shall  I  propose  that  we  look  for  examples  of  art 
and  want  of  art,  according  to  our  notion  of  them,  in  the  speech 
of  Lysias  which  you  have  in  your  hand,  and  in  my  own  speech  ? 

PhcEdr.  Nothing  could  be  better;  and  indeed  I  think  that 
our  previous  argument  has  been  too  abstract  and  wanting  in 
illustrations. 

Soc.  Yes;  and  the  two  speeches  happen  to  afford  a  very 
good  example  of  the  way  in  which  the  speaker  who  knows  the 
truth  may,  without  any  serious  purpose,  steal  away  the  hearts 
of  his  hearers.  This  piece  of  good-fortune  I  attribute  to  the 
local  deities;  and,  perhaps,  the  prophets  of  the  Muses  who 
are  singing  over  our  heads  may  have  imparted  their  inspira- 
tion to  me.  For  I  do  not  imagine  that  I  have  any  rhetorical 
art  of  my  own. 

Phcedr.    Granted ;  if  you  will  only  please  to  get  on. 

Soc.  Suppose  that  you  read  me  the  first  words  of  Lysias' 
speech. 

Phcedr.  '  You  know  how  matters  stand  with  me,  and  how, 
as  I  conceive,  they  might  be  arranged  for  our  common  inter- 
est; and  I  maintain  that  I  ought  not  to  fail  in  my  suit,  because 
I  am  not  your  lover.     For  lovers  repent  —  ' 

Soc.  Enough:— Now,  shall  I  point  out  the  rhetorical 
error  of  those  words  ? 

Phcedr.     Yes. 

Soc.  Every  one  is  aware  that  about  some  things  we  are 
agreed,  whereas  about  other  things  we  differ. 


30  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Phadr.  I  think  that  I  understand  you;  but  will  you  ex- 
plain yourself  ? 

Soc.  When  any  one  speaks  of  iron  and  silver,  is  not  the 
same  thing  present  in  the  minds  of  all  ? 

PhcBdr.    Certainly. 

Soc.  But  when  any  one  speaks  of  justice  and  goodness 
we  part  company  and  are  at  odds  with  one  another  and  with 
ourselves  ? 

Phcedr.     Precisely. 

Soc.    Then  in  some  things  we  agree,  but  not  in  others  ? 

Phcedr.    That  is  true. 

Soc.  In  which  are  we  more  likely  to  be  deceived,  and  in 
which  has  rhetoric  the  greater  power  ? 

PhcBdr.    Clearly,  in  the  uncertain  class. 

Soc.  Then  the  rhetorician  ought  to  make  a  regular  division, 
and  acquire  a  distinct  notion  of  both  classes,  as  well  of  that 
in  which  the  many  err,  as  of  that  in  which  they  do  not  err  ? 

Phcedr.  He  who  made  such  a  distinction  would  have  an 
excellent  principle. 

Soc.  Yes;  and  in  the  next  place  he  must  have  a  keen  eye 
for  the  observation  of  particulars  in  speaking,  and  not  make 
a  mistake  about  the  class  to  which  they  are  to  be  referred. 

Phcedr.    Certainly. 

Soc.  Now  to  which  class  does  love  belong  —  to  the  de- 
batable or  to  the  undisputed  class  ? 

Phcedr.  To  the  debatable,  clearly;  for  if  not,  do  you  think 
that  love  would  have  allowed  you  to  say  as  you  did,  that  he  is 
an  evil  both  to  the  lover  and  the  beloved,  and  also  the  greatest 
possible  good  ? 

Soc.  Capital.  But  will  you  tell  me  whether  I  defined  love 
at  the  beginning  of  my  speech  ?  for,  having  been  in  an  ecstasy, 
I  cannot  well  remember. 

Phcedr.     Yes,  indeed;  that  you  did,  and  no  mistake. 


PLA  TO  3  I 

Soc.  Then  I  perceive  that  the  Nymphs  of  Achelous  and 
Pan  the  son  of  Hermes,  who  inspired  me,  were  far  better 
rhetoricians  than  Lysias  the  son  of  Cephalus.  Alas  !  how 
inferior  to  them  he  is  !  But  perhaps  I  am  mistaken;  and 
Lysias  ,at  the  commencement  of  his  lover's  speech  did  insist 
on  our  supposing  love  to  be  something  or  other  which  he  fan- 
cied him  to  be,  and  according  to  this  model  he  fashioned  and 
framed  the  remainder  of  his  discourse.  Suppose  we  read  his 
beginning  over  again : 

Phadr.     If  you  please;  but  you  will  not  find  what  you  want. 

Soc.     Read,  that  I  may  have  his  exact  words. 

Phcedr.  '  You  know  how  matters  stand  with  me,  and  how, 
as  I  conceive,  they  might  be  arranged  for  our  common  inter- 
est; and  I  maintain  I  ought  not  to  fail  in  my  suit  because  I 
am  not  your  lover,  for  lovers  repent  of  the  kindnesses  which 
they  have  shown,  when  their  love  is  over.' 

Soc.  Here  he  appears  to  have  done  just  the  reverse  of 
what  he  ought ;  for  he  has  begun  at  the  end,  and  is  swimming 
on  his  back  through  the  flood  to  the  place  of  starting.  His 
address  to  the  fair  youth  begins  where  the  lover  would  have 
ended.     Am  I  not  right,  sweet  Phasdrus  ? 

Phcedr.     Yes,  indeed,  Socrates;   he  does  begin  at  the  end. 

Soc.  Then  as  to  the  other  topics  —  are  they  not  thrown 
down  anyhow  ?  Is  there  any  principle  in  them  ?  Why  should 
the  next  topic  follow  next  in  order,  or  any  other  topic  ?  I 
cannot  help  fancying  in  my  ignorance  that  he  wrote  off  boldly 
just  what  came  into  his  head,  but  I  dare  say  that  you  would 
recognize  a  rhetorical  necessity  in  the  succession  of  the  several 
parts  of  the  composition? 

Phcedr.  You  have  too  good  an  opinion  of  me  if  you  think 
that  I  have  any  such  insight  into  his  principles  of  composition. 

Soc.  At  any  rate,  you  will  allow  that  every  discourse  ought 
to  be  a  living  creature,  having  a  body  of  its  own  and  a  head 


32  THEORIES   OE  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  feet;  there  should  be  a  middle,  beginning,  and  end, 
adapted  to  one  another  and  to  the  whole  ?  ^ 

Phadr.     Certainly. 

Soc.  Can  this  be  said  of  the  discourse  of  Lysias?  See 
whether  you  can  find  any  more  connection  in  his  words  than  in 
the  epitaph  which  is  said  by  some  to  have  been  inscribed  on 
the  grave  of  Midas  the  Phrygian. 

Phadr.     Wliat  is  there  remarkable  in  the  epitaph? 

Soc.     It  is  as  follows :  — 

'I  am  a  maiden  of  bronze  and  lie  on  the  tomb  of  Midas; 
So  long  as  water  flows  and  tall  trees  grow, 
So  long  here  on  this  spot  by  his  sad  tomb  abiding, 
I  shall  declare  to  passers-by  that  Midas  sleeps  below.' 

Now  in  this  rhyme  whether  a  line  comes  first  or  comes  last, 
as  you  will  perceive,  makes  no  difference. 

Phadr.     You  are  making  fun  of  that  oration  of  ours. 

Soc.  Well,  I  will  say  no  more  about  your  friend's  speech 
lest  I  should  give  offence  to  you;  although  I  think  that  it 
might  furnish  many  other  examples  of  what  a  man  ought 
rather  to  avoid.  But  I  will  proceed  to  the  other  speech, 
which,  as  I  think,  is  also  suggestive  to  students  of  rhetoric. 

PhcBdr.     In  what  way? 

Soc.  The  two  speeches,  as  you  may  remember,  were  un- 
like; the  one  argued  that  the  lover  and  the  other  that  the  non- 
lover  ought  to  be  accepted. 

Phcedr.     And  right  manfully. 

Soc.  You  should  rather  say  '  madly  ' ;  and  madness  was 
the  argument  of  them,  for,  as  I  said,  '  love  is  a  madness.' 

Phcrdr.     Yes. 

Soc.  And  of  madness  there  were  two  kinds;  one  produced 
by  human  infirmity,  tlie  other  was  a  divine  release  of  the  soul 
from  the  yoke  of  custom  and  convention. 


PLATO  33 

Phadr.    True. 

Soc.  The  divine  madness  was  subdivided  into  four  kinds: 
prophetic,  initiatory,  poetic,  erotic,  having  four  gods  presiding 
over  them ;  the  first  was  the  inspiration  of  Apollo,  the  second 
that  of  Dionysus,  the  third  that  of  the  Muses,  the  fourth  that 
of  Aphrodite  and  Eros.  In  the  description  of  the  last  kind  of 
madness,  which  was  also  said  to  be  the  best,  we  spoke  of  the 
affection  of  love  in  a  figure,  into  which  we  introduced  a 
tolerably  credible  and  possibly  true  though  partly  erring 
myth,  which  was  also  a  hymn  in  honor  of  Love,  who  is  your 
lord  and  also  mine,  Phcedrus,  and  the  guardian  of  fair  chil- 
dren, and  to  him  we  sung  the  hymn  in  measured  and  solemn 
strain. 

Phadr.  I  know  that  I  had  great  pleasure  in  listening  to 
you. 

Soc.  Let  us  take  this  instance  and  note  how  the  transition 
was  made  from  blame  to  praise. 

Phcedr.     What  do  you  mean  ? 

Soc.  I  mean  to  say  that  the  composition  was  mostly  play- 
ful. Yet  in  these  chance  fancies  of  the  hour  were  involved 
two  principles  of  which  we  should  be  too  glad  to  have  a  clearer 
description  if  art  could  give  us  one. 

Phadr.     What  are  they? 

Soc.  First,  the  comprehension  of  scattered  particulars 
in  one  idea;  as  in  our  definition  of  love,  which  whether  true 
or  false  certainly  gave  clearness  and  consistency  to  the  dis- 
course, the  speaker  should  define  his  several  notions  and  so 
make  his  meaning  clear. 

Phcedr.     What  is  the  other  principle,  Socrates  ? 

Soc.  The  second  principle  is  that  of  division  into  species 
according  to  the  natural  formation,  where  the  joint  is,  not 
breaking  any  part  as  a  bad  carver  might.  Just  as  our  two 
discourses,  alike  assumed,  first  of  all,  a  single  form  of  unrea- 


34  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

son;  and  then,  as  the  body  which  from  being  one  becomes 
double  and  may  be  divided  into  a  left  side  and  a  right  side, 
each  having  parts  right  and  left  of  the  same  nam.e  —  after 
this  manner  the  speaker  proceeded  to  divide  the  parts  of  the 
left  side  and  did  not  desist  until  he  found  in  them  an  evil 
or  left-handed  love  which  he  justly  reviled ;  and  the  other  dis- 
course leading  us  to  the  madness  which  lay  on  the  right  side, 
found  another  love,  also  having  the  same  name,  but  divine, 
which  the  speaker  held  up  before  us  and  applauded  and 
affirmed  to  be  the  author  of  the  greatest  benefits. 

PhcBdr.    Most  true. 

Soc.  I  am  myself  a  great  lover  of  these  processes  of  divi- 
sion and  generalization;  ^  they  help  me  to  speak  and  to  think. 
And  if  I  find  any  man  who  is  able  to  see  '  a  One  and  Many  ' 
in  nature,  him  I  follow,  and  '  walk  in  his  footsteps  as  if  he 
were  a  god.'  And  those  who  have  this  art,  I  have  hitherto 
been  in  the  habit  of  calling  dialecticians;  but  God  knows 
whether  the  name  is  right  or  not.  And  I  should  like  to  know 
what  name  you  would  give  to  your  or  to  Lysias'  disciples, 
and  whether  this  may  not  be  that  famous  art  of  rhetoric  which 
Thrasymachus  and  others  teach  and  practise?  Skilful 
speakers  they  are,  and  impart  their  skill  to  any  who  is  willing 
to  make  kings  of  them  and  to  bring  gifts  to  them. 

PhcEdr.  Yes,  they  are  royal  men;  but  their  art  is  not  the 
same  with  the  art  of  those  whom  you  call,  and  rightly,  in 
my  opinion,  dialecticians:  —  Still  we  are  in  the  dark  about 
rhetoric. 

Soc.  What  do  you  mean?  The  remains  of  it,  if  there  be 
anything  remaining  which  can  be  brought  under  rules  of  art, 
must  be  a  fine  thing;  and,  at  any  rate,  is  not  to  be  despised 
by  you  and  me.     But  how  much  is  left  ? 

PhcBdr.  There  is  a  great  deal  surely  to  be  found  in  books 
of  rhetoric? 


PL  A  TO  35 

Soc.  Yes;  thank  you  for  reminding  me: — There  is  the 
exordium,  showing  how  the  speech  should  begin,  if  I 
remember  rightly;  that  is  what  you  mean  —  the  niceties 
of  the  art? 

Phcedr.     Yes. 

Soc.  Then  follows  the  statement  of  facts,  and  upon  that 
witnesses ;  thirdly,  proofs ;  fourthly,  probabilities  are  to  come ; 
the  great  Byzantian  word-maker  also  speaks,  if  I  am  not 
mistaken,  of  confirmation  and  further  confirmation. 

Phczdr.     You  mean  the  excellent  Theodorus. 

Soc.  Yes;  and  he  tells  how  refutation  or  further  refuta- 
tion is  to  be  managed,  whether  in  accusation  or  defence.  I 
ought  also  to  mention  the  illustrious  Parian,  Evenus,  who  first 
invented  insinuations  and  indirect  praises;  and  also  indirect 
censures,  which  according  to  some  he  put  into  verse  to  help 
the  memory.  But  shall  I  '  to  dumb  forgetfulness  consign  ' 
Tisias  and  Gorgias,  who  are  not  ignorant  that  probability 
is  superior  to  truth,  and  who  by  force  of  argument  make  the 
little  appear  great  and  the  great  little,  disguise  the  new  in  old 
fashions  and  the  old  in  new  fashions,  and  have  discovered 
forms  for  everything,  either  short  or  going  on  to  infinity. 
I  remember  Prodicus  laughing  when  I  told  him  of  this;  he 
said  that  he  had  himself  discovered  the  true  rule  of  art,  which 
was  to  be  neither  long  nor  short,  but  of  a  convenient  length. 

Phcedr.     Well  done,  Prodicus  ! 

Soc.  Then  there  is  Hippias  the  Elean  stranger,  who 
probably  agrees  with  him. 

Phcedr.     Yes. 

Soc.  And  there  is  also  Polus,  who  has  treasuries  of  di- 
plasiology,  and  gnomology,  and  eikonology,  and  who  teaches 
in  them  the  names  of  which  Licymnius  made  him  a  present; 
they  were  to  give  a  polish. 

PhcBdr.     Had  not  Protagoras  something  of  the  same  sort? 


36  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Soc.  Yes,  rules  of  correct  diction  and  many  other  fine 
precepts;  for  the  '  sorrows  of  a  poor  old  man,'  or  any  other 
pathetic  case,  no  one  is  better  than  the  Chalccdonian  giant; 
he  can  put  a  whole  company  of  people  into  a  passion  and  out 
of  one  again  by  his  mighty  magic,  and  is  first-rate  at  inventing 
or  disposing  of  any  sort  of  calumny  on  any  grounds  or  none. 
All  of  them  agree  in  asserting  that  a  speech  should  end  in  a 
recapitulation,  though  they  do  not  all  agree  to  use  the  same 
word. 

Phddr.  You  mean  that  there  should  be  a  summing  up  of 
the  arguments  in  order  to  remind  the  hearers  of  them. 

Soc.  I  have  now  said  all  that  I  have  to  say  of  the  art  of 
rhetoric :  have  you  anything  to  add  ? 

Phosdr.     Not  much;  nothing  very  important. 

Soc.  Leave  the  unimportant  and  let  us  bring  the  really 
important  question  into  the  light  of  day,  which  is:  What 
power  has  this  art  of  rhetoric,  and  when  ? 

Phcedr.     A  very  great  power  in  public  meetings. 

Soc.  It  has.  But  I  should  like  to  know  whether  you  have 
the  same  feeling  as  I  have  about  the  rhetoricians?  To  me 
there  seem  to  be  a  great  many  holes  in  their  web. 

Phcedr.    Give  an  example. 

Soc.  I  will.  Suppose  a  person  to  come  to  your  friend 
Eryximachus,  or  to  his  father  Acumenus,  and  to  say  to  him: 

*  I  know  how  to  apply  drugs  which  shall  have  either  a  heating 
or  a  cooling  effect,  and  I  can  give  a  vomit  and  also  a  purge, 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing;  and  knowing  all  this,  as  I  do,  I 
claim  to  be  a  physician  and  to  make  physicians  by  imparting 
this  knowledge  to  others,'  —  what  do  you  suppose  that  they 
would  say  ? 

Phcedr.  They  would  be  sure  to  ask  him  whether  he  knew 
'  lo  whom  '  he  would  give  his  medicines,  and  '  when,'  and 

*  how  much.' 


PLATO  37 

Soc.  And  suppose  that  he  were  to  reply:  'No;  I  know 
nothing  of  all  that;  I  expect  the  patient  who  consults  me  to 
be  able  to  do  these  things  for  himself  '  ? 

Phadr.  They  would  say  in  reply  that  he  is  a  madman  or 
a  pedant  who  fancies  that  he  is  a  physician  because  he  has 
read  something  in  a  book,  or  has  stumbled  on  a  prescription 
or  two,  although  he  has  no  real  understanding  of  the  art  of 
medicine. 

Soc.  And  suppose  a  person  were  to  come  to  Sophocles  or 
Euripides  and  say  that  he  knows  how  to  make  a  very  long 
speech  about  a  small  matter,  and  a  short  speech  about  a  great 
matter,  and  also  a  sorrowful  speech,  or  a  terrible,  or  threaten- 
ing speech,  or  any  other  kind  of  speech,  and  in  teaching  this 
fancies  that  he  is  teaching  the  art  of  tragedy  — ? 

Phddr.  They  too  would  surely  laugh  at  h  im  if  he  fancies  that 
tragedy  is  anything  but  the  arranging  of  these  elements  in  a 
manner  which  will  be  suitable  to  one  another  and  to  the  whole. 

Soc.  But  I  do  not  suppose  that  they  would  be  rude  or  abu- 
sive to  him:  Would  they  not  treat  him  as  a  musician  would  a 
man  who  thinks  that  he  is  a  harmonist  because  he  knows  how 
to  pitch  the  highest  and  lowest  note ;  happening  to  meet  such 
an  one  he  would  not  say  to  him  savagely, '  Fool,  you  are  mad  ! ' 
But  like  a  musician,  in  a  gentle  and  harmonious  tone  of  voice, 
he  would  answer:  'My  good  friend,  he  who  would  be  a  har- 
monist must  certainly  know  this,  and  yet  he  may  understand 
nothing  of  harmony  if  he  has  not  got  beyond  your  stage  of 
knowledge,  for  you  only  know  the  preliminaries  of  harmony 
and  not  harmony  itself.' 

Phcedr.     Very  true. 

Soc.  And  will  not  Sophocles  say  to  the  display  of  the 
would-be  tragedian,  that  this  is  not  tragedy  but  the  prelim- 
inaries of  tragedy?  and  will  not  Acumenus  say  the  same  of 
medicine  to  the  would-be  physician? 


38  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Phcedr.    Quite  true. 

Soc.  And  if  Adrastus  the  mellifluous  or  Pericles  heard  of 
these  wonderful  arts,  brachylogies  and  eikonologies  and  all 
the  hard  names  which  we  have  been  endeavoring  to  draw 
into  the  light  of  day,  what  would  they  say?  Instead  of  losing 
temper  and  applying  uncomplimentary  epithets,  as  you  and 
I  have  been  doing,  to  the  authors  of  such  an  imaginary  art, 
their  superior  wisdom  would  rather  censure  us,  as  well  as 
them.  '  Have  a  little  patience,  Phasdrus  and  Socrates,' 
they  would  say;  '  you  should  not  be  in  such  a  passion  with 
those  who  from  some  want  of  dialectical  skill  are  unable  to 
define  the  nature  of  rhetoric,  and  consequently  suppose  that 
they  have  found  the  art  in  the  preliminary  conditions  of  it, 
and  when  these  have  been  taught  by  them  to  others,  fancy 
that  the  whole  art  of  rhetoric  has  been  taught  by  them; 
but  as  to  using  the  several  instruments  of  the  art  effectively, 
or  making  the  composition  a  whole,  —  an  application  of  it 
such  as  this  is  they  consider  to  be  an  easy  thing  which  their 
disciples  may  make  for  themselves.' 

Phcedr.  I  quite  admit,  Socrates,  that  the  art  of  rhetoric 
which  these  men  teach  and  that  of  which  they  write  is  such  as 
you  describe  —  there  I  agree  with  you.  But  I  still  want  to 
know  where  and  how  the  true  art  of  rhetoric  and  persuasion 
is  to  be  acquired. 

Soc.  The  perfection  which  is  required  of  the  finished  orator 
is,  or  rather  must  be,  like  the  perfection  of  anything  else, 
partly  given  by  nature,  but  may  also  be  assisted  by  art. 
If  you  have  the  natural  power  and  add  to  it  knowledge  and 
practice,  you  will  be  a  distinguished  speaker;  if  you  fall  short 
in  either  of  these,  you  will  be  to  that  extent  defective.  But 
the  art,  as  far  as  there  is  an  art,  of  rhetoric  does  not  lie  in  the 
direction  of  Lysias  orThrasymachus. 

Phcedr.     In  what  direction  then? 


PLATO 


39 


Soc.  I  conceive  Pericles  to  have  been  the  most  accom- 
plished of  rhetoricians. 

Fh(zdr.     What  of  that  ? 

Soc.  All  the  great  arts  require  discussion  and  high  specu- 
lation about  the  truths  of  nature;  hence  come  loftiness  of 
thought  and  completeness  of  execution.  And  this,  as  I  con- 
ceive, vi^as  the  quality  which,  in  addition  to  his  natural  gifts, 
Pericles  acquired  from  his  intercourse  with  Anaxagoras 
whom  he  happened  to  know.  He  was  thus  imbued  with  the 
higher  philosophy,  and  attained  the  knowledge  of  Mind 
and  the  negative  of  Mind,  which  were  favorite  themes  of 
Anaxagoras,  and  applied  what  suited  his  purpose  to  the  art 
of  speaking. 

Phadr.     Explain. 

Soc.     Rhetoric  is  like  medicine. 

PhcBdr.     How  so? 

Soc.  Why,  because  medicine  has  to  define  the  nature  of 
the  body  and  rhetoric  of  the  soul  —  if  we  would  proceed, 
not  empirically  but  scientifically,  in  the  one  case  to  impart 
health  and  strength  by  giving  medicine  and  food,  in  the  other 
to  implant  the  conviction  or  virtue  which  you  desire,  by  the 
right  application  of  words  and  training, 

Phcedr.    There,  Socrates,  I  suspect  that  you  are  right. 

Soc.  And  do  you  think  that  you  can  know  the  nature  of 
the  soul  intelligently  without  knowing  the  nature  of  the 
whole  ? 

Phcedr.  Hippocrates  the  Asclepiad  says  that  the  nature 
even  of  the  body  can  only  be  understood  as  a  whole. 

Soc.  Yes,  friend,  and  he  was  right:  —  still,  we  ought  not 
to  be  content  with  the  name  of  Hippocrates,  but  to  examine 
and  see  whether  his  argument  agrees  with  his  conception  of 
nature. 

Phcedr.     I  agree. 


40  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Soc.  Then  consider  what  truth  as  well  as  Hippocrates 
says  about  this  or  about  any  other  nature.  Ought  we  not  to 
consider  first  whether  that  which  we  wish  to  learn  and  to 
teach  is  a  simple  or  multiform  thing,  and  if  simple,  then  to 
inquire  what  power  it  has  of  acting  or  being  acted  upon  in 
relation  to  other  things,  and  if  multiform,  then  to  number 
the  forms;  and  see  first  in  the  case  of  one  of  them,  and  then 
in  the  case  of  all  of  them,  what  is  that  power  of  acting  or 
being  acted  upon  which  makes  each  and  all  of  them  to  be 
what  they  are  ? 

Phcedr.     You  may  very  likely  be  right,  Socrates. 

Soc.  The  method  which  proceeds  without  analysis  is  like 
the  groping  of  a  blind  man.  Yet,  surely,  he  who  is  an  artist 
ought  not  to  admit  of  a  comparison  with  the  blind,  or  deaf. 
The  rhetorician,  who  teaches  his  pupil  to  speak  scientifically, 
will  particularly  set  forth  the  nature  of  that  being  to  which 
he  addresses  his  speeches;  and  this  I  conceive  to  be  the  soul. 

Phadr.    Certainly. 

Soc.  His  whole  effort  is  directed  to  the  soul;  for  in  that 
he  seeks  to  produce  conviction. 

Phadr.     Yes. 

Soc.  Then  clearly,  Thrasymachus  or  any  one  else  who 
teaches  rhetoric  in  earnest  will  give  an  exact  description  of  the 
nature  of  the  soul;  which  will  enable  us  to  see  whether  she 
be  single  and  same,  or,  like  the  body,  multiform.  That  is 
what  we  should  call  showing  the  nature  of  the  soul. 

PhcBdr.     Exactly. 

Soc.  He  will  explain,  secondly,  the  mode  in  which  she  acts 
or  is  acted  upon. 

PhcBdr.    True. 

Soc.  Thirdly,  having  classified  men  and  speeches,  and 
their  kinds  and  affections,  and  adapted  them  to  one  another, 
he  will  tell  the  reasons  of  his  arrangement,  and  show  why  one 


PLA  TO 


41 


soul  is  persuaded  by  a  ])articular  form  of  argument,  and  an- 
other not. 

PhcEdr.     You  have  hit  upon  a  very  good  way. 

Soc.  Yes,  that  is  the  true  and  only  way  in  which  any  sub- 
ject can  be  set  forth  or  treated  by  rules  of  art,  whether  in  speak- 
ing or  writing.  But  the  writers  of  the  present  day,  at  whose 
feet  you  have  sat,  craftily  conceal  the  nature  of  the  soul  which 
they  know  quite  well.  Nor,  until  they  adopt  our  method  of 
reading  and  writing,  can  we  admit  that  they  write  by  rules 
of  art  ? 

Phadr.     What  is  our  method  ? 

Soc.  I  cannot  give  you  the  exact  details;  but  I  should 
like  to  tell  you  generally,  as  far  as  is  in  my  power,  how  a  man 
ought  to  proceed  according  to  rules  of  art. 

Phadr.    Let  me  hear. 

Soc.  Oratory  is  the  art  of  enchanting  the  soul,  and  there- 
fore he  who  would  be  an  orator  has  to  learn  the  differences 
of  human  souls  —  they  are  so  many  and  of  such  a  nature,  and 
from  them  come  the  dilTerences  between  man  and  man.  Hav- 
ing proceeded  thus  far  in  his  analysis,  he  will  next  divide 
speeches  into  their  different  classes :  —  '  Such  and  such  per- 
sons,' he  will  say,  '  are  affected  by  this  or  that  kind  of  speech 
in  this  or  that  way,'  and  he  will  tell  you  why.  The  pupil 
must  have  a  good  theoretical  notion  of  them  first,  and  then  he 
must  have  experience  of  them  in  actual  life,  and  be  able  to  fol- 
low them  with  all  his  senses  about  him,  or  he  will  never  get 
beyond  the  precepts  of  his  masters.  But  when  he  under- 
stands what  persons  are  persuaded  by  what  arguments,  and 
sees  the  person  about  whom  he  v/as  speaking  in  the  abstract 
actually  before  him,  and  knows  that  it  is  he,  and  can  say  to 
himself,  '  This  is  the  man  or  this  is  the  character  who  ought 
to  have  a  certain  argument  applied  to  him  in  order  to  convince 
him  of  a  certain  opinion;' — he  who  knows  ail  this,  and 


42  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

knows  also  when  he  should  speak  and  when  he  should  refrain, 
and  when  he  should  use  pithy  sayings,  pathetic  appeals,  sensa- 
tional effects,  and  all  the  other  modes  of  speech  which  he  has 
learned;  —  when,  I  say,  he  knows  the  times  and  seasons  of 
all  these  things,  then,  and  not  till  then,  he  is  a  perfect  master 
of  his  art;  but  if  he  fail  in  any  of  these  points,  whether  in 
speaking  or  teaching  or  writing  them,  and  yet  declares  that  he 
speaks  by  rules  of  art,  he  who  says  '  I  don't  believe  you  '  has 
the  better  of  him.  Well,  the  teacher  will  say,  is  this. 
Phaedrus  and  Socrates,  your  account  of  the  so-called  art  of 
rhetoric,  or  am  I  to  look  for  another  ? 

Ph(zdr.  He  must  take  this,  Socrates,  for  there  is  no  pos- 
sibility of  another,  and  yet  the  creation  of  such  an  art  is  not 
easy. 

Soc.  Very  true;  and  therefore  let  us  consider  this  matter 
in  every  light,  and  see  whether  we  cannot  find  a  shorter  and 
easier  road;  there  is  no  use  in  taking  a  long  rough  round- 
about way  if  there  be  a  shorter  and  easier  one.  And  I  wish 
that  you  would  try  and  remember  whether  you  have  heard 
from  Lysias  or  any  one  else  anything  which  might  be  of  ser- 
vice to  us. 

PhcBdr.  If  trying  would  avail,  then  I  might;  but  at 
the  moment  I  can  think  of  nothing. 

Soc.  Suppose  I  tell  you  something  which  somebody  who 
knows  told  me. 

Phadr.    Certainly. 

Soc.  May  not  '  the  wolf,'  as  the  proverb  says,  '  claim  a 
hearing  '  ? 

Phcedr.     Do  you  say  what  can  be  said  for  him. 

Soc.  He  will  argue  that  there  is  no  use  in  putting  a  solemn 
face  on  these  matters,  or  in  going  round  and  round,  until  you 
arrive  at  first  principles;  for,  as  I  said  at  first,  when  the  ques- 
tion is  of  justice  and  good,  or  is  a  question  in  which  men  are 


PL  A  TO 


43 


concerned  who  are  just  and  good,  either  by  nature  or  habit, 
he  who  would  be  a  skilful  rhetorician  has  no  need  of  truth 
—  for  that  in  courts  of  law  men  literally  care  nothing  about 
truth,  but  only  about  conviction:  and  this  is  based  on  proba- 
bility, to  which  he  who  would  be  a  skilful  orator  should  there- 
fore give  his  whole  attention.  And  they  say  also  that  there 
are  cases  in  which  the  actual  facts,  if  they  are  improbable, 
ought  to  be  withheld,  and  only  the  probabihties  should  be 
told  either  in  accusation  or  defence,  and  that  always  in  speak- 
ing, the  orator  should  keep  probabihty  in  view,  and  say  good- 
by  to  the  truth.  And  the  observance  of  this  principle 
throughout  a  speech  furnishes  the  whole  art. 

Phadr.  That  is  what  the  professors  of  rhetoric  do  actually 
say,  Socrates.  I  have  not  forgotten  that  we  have  quite  briefly 
touched  upon  this  matter  already;  with  them  the  point  is  all- 
important. 

Soc.  I  dare  say  that  you  are  familiar  with  Tisias.  Docs 
he  not  define  probabihty  to  be  that  which  the  many  think? 

Phcedr.    Certainly,  he  does. 

Soc.  I  believe  that  he  has  a  clever  and  ingenious  case  of 
this  sort :  —  He  supposes  a  feeble  and  valiant  man  to  have 
assaulted  a  strong  and  cowardly  one,  and  to  have  robbed  him 
of  his  coat  or  of  something  or  other;  he  is  brought  into  court, 
and  then  Tisias  says  that  both  parties  should  tell  lies:  the 
coward  should  say  that  he  was  assaulted  by  more  men  than 
one;  the  other  should  prove  that  they  were  alone,  and  should 
argue  thus:  '  How  could  a  weak  man  like  me  have  assaulted 
a  strong  man  like  him  ?  '  The  complainant  will  not  like  to 
confess  his  own  cowardice,  and  will  therefore  invent  some 
other  lie  which  his  adversary  will  thus  gain  an  opportu- 
nity of  refuting.  And  there  are  other  devices  of  the  same  kind 
which  have  a  place  in  the  system.     Am  I  not  right,  Phaedrus? 

Phadr.    Certainly. 


44  THEORIES    OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

Soc.  Bless  mc,  what  a  wonderfully  mysterious  art  is 
this  which  Tisias  or  some  other  gentleman,  in  whatever  name 
or  country  he  rejoices,  has  discovered.  Shall  we  say  a  word 
to  him  or  not? 

Ph(zdr.     What  shall  we  say  to  him  ? 

Soc.  ^Let  us  tell  him  that,  before  he  appeared,  you  and 
I  were  saying  that  the  probability  of  which  he  speaks  was 
engendered  in  the  minds  of  the  many  by  the  likeness  of  the 
truth,  and  we  had  just  been  affirming  that  he  who  knew  the 
truth  would  always  know  best  how  to  discover  the  resem- 
blances of  the  truth.  If  he  has  anything  else  to  say  about  the 
art  of  speaking  we  should  like  to  hear  him ;  but  if  not,  we  are 
satisfied  with  our  own  view,  that  unless  a  man  estimates  the 
various  characters  of  his  hearers  and  is  able  to  divide  all 
things  into  classes  and  to  comprehend  them  under  single  ideas, 
he  will  never  be  a  skilful  rhetorician  even  within  the  limits 
of  human  power.  And  this  skill  he  will  not  attain  without  a 
great  deal  of  trouble,  which  a  good  man  ought  to  undergo, 
not  for  the  sake  of  speaking  and  acting  before  men,  but  in 
order  that  he  may  be  able  to  say  what  is  acceptable  to  God 
and  always  to  act  acceptably  to  Him  as  far  as  in  him  hes; 
for  there  is  a  saying  of  wiser  men  than  ourselves,  that  a  man 
of  sense  should  not  try  to  please  his  fellow-servants  (at  least 
this  should  not  be  his  first  object)  but  his  good  and  noble  mas- 
ters; and  therefore  if  the  way  is  long  and  circuitous,  marvel 
not  at  this,  for,  where  the  end  is  great,  there  we  may  take  the 
longer  road,  but  not  for  lesser  ends  such  as  yours.  Truly, 
the  argument  may  say,  Tisias,  that  if  you  do  not  mind  going 
so  far,  rhetoric  has  a  fair  beginning  here. 

PhcBdr.  I  think,  Socrates,  that  this  is  admirable,  if  only 
practicable. 

Soc.     But  even  to  fail  in  an  honorable  object  is  honorable. 

PhcBdr.    True. 


PL  A  TO 


45 


Soc.  Enough  appears  to  have  been  said  by  us  of  a  true 
and  false  art  of  speaking. 

Phczdr.    Certainly. 

Soc.  But  there  is  something  yet  to  be  said  of  propriety 
and  impropriety  of  writing. 

Phczdr.     Yes. 

Soc.  Do  you  know  how  you  can  speak  or  act  about  rhetoric 
in  a  manner  which  will  be  acceptable  to  God  ? 

Phadr.     No,  indeed.     Do  you  ? 

Soc.  I  have  heard  a  tradition  of  the  ancients,  whether 
true  or  not  they  only  know;  although  if  we  had  found  the 
truth  ourselves,  do  you  think  that  we  should  care  much  about 
the  opinions  of  men  ? 

PhcBdr.  Your  question  needs  no  answer;  but  I  wish  that 
you  would  tell  me  what  you  say  that  you  have  heard. 

Soc.  At  the  Egyptian  city  of  Naucratis,  there  was  a  fa- 
mous old  god,  whose  name  was  Theuth;  the  bird  which  is 
called  the  Ibis  is  sacred  to  him,  and  he  was  the  inventor  of 
many  arts,  such  as  arithmetic  and  calculation  and  geometry 
and  astronomy  and  draughts  and  dice,  but  his  great  discovery 
was  the  use  of  letters.  Now  in  those  days  the  god  Thamus 
was  the  king  of  the  whole  country  of  Egypt;  and  he  dwelt 
in  that  great  city  of  Upper  Egypt  which  the  Hellenes  call 
Egyptian  Thebes,  and  the  god  himself  is  called  by  them 
Ammon.  To  him  came  Theuth  and  showed  his  inventions, 
desiring  that  the  other  Egyptians  might  be  allowed  to  have 
the  benefit  of  them;  he  enumerated  them,  and  Thamus  in- 
quired about  their  several  uses,  and  praised  some  of  them  and 
censured  others,  as  he  approved  or  disapproved  of  them.  It 
would  take  a  long  time  to  repeat  all  that  Thamus  said  to 
Theuth  in  praise  or  blame  of  the  various  arts.  But  when  they 
came  to  letters.  This,  said  Theuth,  will  make  the  Egyptians 
wiser  and  give  them  better  memories;   it  is  a  specific  both  for 


46  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  memory  and  for  the  wit.  Thamus  rephed:  O  most  in- 
genious Theuth,  the  parent  or  inventor  of  an  art  is  not  always 
the  best  judge  of  the  utihty  or  inutihty  of  his  own  inventions 
to  the  users  of  them.  And  in  this  instance,  you  who  are  the 
father  of  letters,  from  a  paternal  love  of  your  own  children 
have  been  led  to  attribute  to  them  a  quahty  which  they  cannot 
have;  for  this  discovery  of  yours  will  create  forgetfulness  in 
the  learners'  souls,  because  they  will  not  use  their  memories ; 
they  will  trust  to  the  external  written  characters  and  not  re- 
member of  themselves.^  The  specific  which  you  have  dis- 
covered is  an  aid  not  to  memory,  but  to  reminiscence,  and  you 
give  your  disciples  not  truth,  but  only  the  semblance  of  truth; 
they  will  be  hearers  of  many  things  and  will  have  learned 
nothing;  they  will  appear  to  be  omniscient  and  will  generally 
know  nothing;  they  will  be  tiresome  company,  having  the 
show  of  wisdom  without  the  reality. 

Phadr.  Yes,  Socrates,  you  can  easily  invent  tales  of 
Egypt,  or  of  any  other  country. 

Soc.  There  was  a  tradition  in  the  temple  of  Dodona  that 
oaks  first  gave  prophetic  utterances.  The  men  of  old,  unlike 
in  their  simplicity  to  young  philosophy,  deemed  that  if  they 
heard  the  truth  even  from  '  oak  or  rock,'  it  was  enough  for 
them;  whereas  you  seem  to  consider  not  whether  a  thing  is  or 
is  not  true,  but  who  the  speaker  is  and  from  what  country  the 
tale  comes. 

Phadr.  I  acknowledge  the  justice  of  your  rebuke;  and  I 
think  that  the  Theban  is  right  in  his  view  about  letters. 

Soc.  He  would  be  a  very  simple  person,  and  quite  a 
stranger  to  the  oracles  of  Thamus  or  Ammon,  who  should 
leave  in  writing  or  receive  in  writing  any  art  under  the  idea 
that  the  written  word  would  be  intelligible  or  certain;  or 
who  deemed  that  writing  was  at  all  better  than  knowledge 
and  recollection  of  the  same  matters  ? 


PLATO 


47 


Phadr.    That  is  most  true. 

Soc.  I  cannot  help  feehng,  Phaedrus,  that  writing  is  un- 
fortunately like  painting;  for  the  creations  of  the  painter 
have  the  attitude  of  life,  and  yet  if  you  ask  them  a  question 
they  preserve  a  solemn  silence.  And  the  same  may  be  said  of 
speeches.  You  would  imagine  that  they  had  intelligence, 
but  if  you  want  to  know  anything  and  put  a  question  to  one 
of  them,  the  speaker  always  gives  one  unvarying  answer. 
And  when  they  have  been  once  written  down  they  are  tumbled 
about  anywhere  among  those  who  may  or  may  not  under- 
stand them,  and  know  not  to  whom  they  should  reply,  to  whom 
not :  and,  if  they  are  maltreated  or  abused,  they  have  no 
parent  to  protect  them;  and  they  cannot  protect  or  defend 
themselves. 

PhcEdr.    That  again  is  most  true. 

Soc.  Is  there  not  another  kind  of  word  or  speech  far  better 
than  this,  and  having  far  greater  power  —  a  son  of  the  same 
family,  but  lawfully  begotten  ? 

PhcBdr.     Whom  do  you  mean,  and  what  is  his  origin  ? 

Soc.  I  mean  an  intelligent  word  graven  in  the  soul  of  the 
learner,  which  can  defend  itself,  and  knows  when  to  speak 
and  when  to  be  silent. 

Phcedr.  You  mean  the  living  word  of  knowledge  which  has 
a  soul,  and  of  which  the  written  word  is  properly  no  more  than 
an  image? 

Soc.  Yes,  of  course  that  is  what  I  mean.  And  now  may 
I  be  allowed  to  ask  you  a  question:  Would  a  husbandman, 
who  is  a  man  of  sense,  take  the  seeds,  which  he  values  and 
which  he  wishes  to  bear  fruit,  and  in  sober  seriousness  plant 
them  during  the  heat  of  summer,  in  some  garden  of  Adonis, 
that  he  may  rejoice  when  he  sees  them  in  eight  days  appearing 
in  beauty  ?  at  least  he  would  do  so,  if  at  all,  only  for  the  sake 
of  amusement  and  pastime.     But  when  he  is  in  earnest  he 


48  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

SOWS  in  fitting  soil,  and  practises  husbandry,  and  is  satisfied 
if  in  eight  months  the  seeds  which  he  has  sown  arrive  at  per- 
fection ? 

Phcedr.  Yes,  Socrates,  that  will  be  his  way  when  he  is  in 
earnest;   he  will  do  the  other,  as  you  say,  only  in  play. 

Soc.  And  can  we  suppose  that  he  who  knows  the  just  and 
good  and  honorable  has  less  understanding,  than  the  hus- 
bandman, about  his  own  seeds  ? 

Phccdr.     Certainly  not. 

Soc.  Then  he  will  not  seriously  incline  to  '  write  '  his 
thoughts  '  in  water  '  with  pen  and  ink,  sowing  words  which  can 
neither  speak  for  themselves  nor  teach  the  truth  adequately 
to  others? 

Ph(zdr.    No,  that  is  not  likely. 

Soc.  No,  that  is  not  hkcly  —  in  the  garden  of  letters  he 
will  sow  and  plant,  but  only  for  the  sake  of  recreation  and 
amusement;  he  will  write  them  down  as  memorials  to  be 
treasured  against  the  forgetfulness  of  old  age,  by  himself, 
or  by  any  other  old  man  who  is  treading  the  same  path.  He 
will  rejoice  in  beholding  their  tender  growth ;  and  while  others 
are  refreshing  their  souls  with  banqueting  and  the  like,  this 
will  be  the  pastime  in  which  his  days  are  spent. 

Phcedr.  A  pastime,  Socrates,  as  noble  as  the  other  is 
ignoble,  the  pastime  of  a  man  who  can  be  amused  by  serious 
talk,  and  can  discourse  merrily  about  justice  and  the  like. 

Soc.  True,  Phaedrus.  But  nobler  far  is  the  serious  pur- 
suit of  the  dialectician,  who,  finding  a  congenial  soul,  by  the 
help  of  science  sows  and  plants  therein  words  which  are  able 
to  help  themselves  and  him  who  planted  them,  and  are  not 
unfruitful,  but  have  in  them  a  seed  which  others  brought  up 
in  different  soils  render  immortal,  making  the  possessors  of 
it  happy  to  the  utmost  extent  of  human  happiness. 

Phcedr.     Far  nobler,  certainly. 


P/.A  TO 


49 


Soc.  And  now,  PlKedrus,  having  agreed  upon  the  premises 
we  may  decide  about  the  conclusion, 

Phcedr.     About  what  conclusion? 

Soc.  About  Lysias,  whom  we  censured,  and  his  art  of 
writing,  and  his  discourses,  and  the  rhetorical  skill  or  want 
of  skill  which  was  shown  in  them  —  these  are  the  questions 
which  we  sought  to  determine,  and  they  brought  us  to  this 
point.  And  I  think  that  we  are  now  pretty  well  informed 
about  the  nature  of  art  and  its  opposite. 

PhcBdr.  Yes,  I  think  with  you ;  but  I  wish  that  you  would 
repeat  what  was  said. 

Soc.  "  Until  a  man  knows  the  truth  of  the  several  particu- 
lars of  which  he  is  writing  or  speaking,  and  is  able  to  define 
them  as  they  are,  and  having  defined  them  again  to  divide 
them  until  they  can  be  no  longer  divided,  and  until  in  Hke 
manner  he  is  able  to  discern  the  nature  of  the  soul,  and  dis- 
cover the  different  modes  of  discourse  which  are  adapted  to 
different  natures,  and  to  arrange  and  dispose  them  in  such  a 
way  that  the  simple  form  of  speech  may  be  addressed  to  the 
simpler  nature,  and  the  complex  and  composite  to  the  more 
complex  nature  —  until  he  has  accomplished  all  this,  he  will 
be  unable  to  handle  arguments  according  to  rules  of  art, 
as  far  as  their  nature  allows  them  to  be  subjected  to  art, 
either  for  the  purpose  of  teaching  or  persuading;  —  such  is 
the  view  which  is  implied  in  the  whole  preceding  argument. 

PJicedr.     Yes,  that  was  our  view,  certainly. 

Soc.  Secondly,  as  to  the  censure  which  w-as  passed  on  the 
speaking  or  writing  of  discourses,  and  how  they  might  be 
rightly  or  wrongly  censured  —  did  not  our  previous  argument 
show  —  ? 

Phcedr.     Show  what  ? 

Soc.  That  whether  Lysias  or  any  other  writer  that  ever 
was  or  will  be,  whether  private  man  or  statesman,  proposes 


50  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

laws  and  so  becomes  the  author  of  a  pohtical  treatise,  fancy- 
ing that  there  is  any  great  certainty  and  clearness  in  his  per- 
formance, the  fact  of  his  so  writing  is  only  a  disgrace  to  him, 
whatever  men  may  say.  For  not  to  know  the  nature  of  justice 
and  injustice,  and  good  and  evil,  and  not  to  be  able  to  distin- 
guish the  dream  from  the  reality,  cannot  in  truth  be  otherwise 
than  disgraceful  to  him,  even  though  he  have  the  applause 
of  the  whole  world. 

PhcBdr.     Certainly. 

Soc.  But  he  who  thinks  that  in  the  written  word  there  is 
necessarily  much  which  is  not  serious,  and  that  neither  poetry 
nor  prose,  spoken  or  written,  is  of  any  great  value,  if,  like  the 
compositions  of  the  rhapsodes,  they  are  only  recited  in  order 
to  be  believed,  and  not  with  any  view  to  criticism  or  instruc- 
tion; and  who  thinks  that  even  the  best  of  writings  are  but  a 
reminiscence  of  what  we  know,  and  that  only  in  principles  of 
justice  and  goodness  and  nobility  taught  and  communicated 
orally  for  the  sake  of  instruction  and  graven  in  the  soul,  which 
is  the  true  way  of  writing,  is  there  clearness  and  perfection 
and  seriousness,  and  that  such  principles  are  a  man's  own 
and  his  legitimate  offspring;  —  being,  in  the  first  place,  the 
word  which  he  finds  in  his  own  bosom;  secondly,  the  breth- 
ren and  descendants  and  relations  of  his  idea  which  have  been 
duly  implanted  by  him  in  the  souls  of  others;  —  and  who  cares 
for  them  and  no  others  —  this  is  the  right  sort  of  man;  and 
you  and  I,  Pheedrus,  would  pray  that  we  may  become  hke 
him. 

Phcedr.    That  is  most  assuredly  my  desire  and  prayer. 

Soc.  And  now  the  play  is  played  out;  and  of  rhetoric 
enough.  Go  and  tell  Lysias  that  to  the  fountain  and  school 
of  the  Nymphs  we  went  down,  and  were  bidden  by  them  to 
convey  a  message  to  him  and  to  other  composers  of  speeches 
—  to  Homer  and  other  writers  of  poems,  whether  set  to  music 


PLATO 


51 


or  not;  and  to  Solon  and  others  who  have  composed  writings 
in  the  form  of  poHtical  discourses  which  they  would  term  laws 
—  to  all  of  them  we  are  to  say  that  if  their  compositions  are 
based  on  knowledge  of  the  truth,  and  they  can  defend  or  prove 
them,  when  they  are  put  to  the  test,  by  spoken  arguments, 
which  leave  their  writings  poor  in  comparison  of  them,  then 
they  are  to  be  called,  not  only  poets,  orators,  legislators,  but 
are  worthy  of  a  higher  name,  befitting  the  serious  pursuit 
of  their  life. 

Phadr.     What  name  would  you  assign  to  them  ? 

Soc.  Wise,  I  may  not  call  them;  for  that  is  a  great  name 
which  belongs  to  God  alone,  —  lovers  of  wisdom  or  philoso- 
phers is  their  modest  and  befitting  title. 

Phcedr.     Very  suitable. 

Soc.  And  he  who  cannot  rise  above  his  own  compilations 
and  compositions,  which  he  has  been  long  patching  and  piec- 
ing, adding  some  and  taking  away  some,  may  be  justly  called 
poet  or  speech-maker  or  law-maker. 

Phadr.    Certainly. 

Soc.    Now  go  and  tell  this  to  your  companion. 

'  Compare  Aristotle's  definition,  below,  p.  52. 

^  This  and  the  preceding  speech  by  Socrates  have  a  highly  instructive  par- 
allel   in    Aristotle's   Poetics,    Chapters   vii,  viii   (Butcher's   translation,    pp. 

31-35)- 

^  These  processes,  the  student  will  remember,  and  the  art  of  illustrating 
abstractions,  mentioned  above,  p.  29,  are  essential  to  all  clear  explanation. 

*  Notice  this  recapitulation,  and  observe  with  what  skill  it  is  introduced. 

'  Compare  Wackernagel,  above,  pp.  8-9 

"  Again  note  the  method  of  recapitulation. 


52  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE. 

Ill 

ARISTOTLE  (b.c.  384-322) 

Rhetoric,  Book  III,  Chapters  I-XII 

[From  The  RJietoric  of  Aristotle,  translated,  etc.,  by  J.  E.  C.  Welldon, 
M.A.  (London  and  New  York,  Macmillan,  1886,  pp.  224-274). 

Bishop  Welldon's  excellent  version,  entire,  should  be  in 
the  hands  of  every  teacher  of  rhetoric  who  lacks  an  easy 
reading  knowledge  of  the  original  Greek.  Directly  or  indi- 
rectly, Aristotle's  Rhetoric,  itself  a  final  product  and  per- 
fected summary  of  prior  Grecian  theory,  is  the  foundation  of 
almost  all  that  is  good  in  subsequent  text-books  on  the  same 
subject.  The  majority  of  these  might  well  be  discarded  in  its 
favor.  Unfortunately,  it  is  often  absent  from  the  libraries 
of  many  whose  collections  of  handbooks  on  composition,  and 
the  like,  are  extensive.  It  is  not,  of  course,  specifically  a 
theory  of  composition,  but  a  treatise  upon  "  a  faculty  of  dis- 
covering all  the  possible  means  of  persuasion  in  any  subject  " 
(Welldon's  translation,  p.  10),  and,  practically,  a  manual  for 
the  public  speaker.  However,  on  account  of  the  close  rela- 
tion between  oratory  and  written  prose  in  origin  and  develop- 
ment, much  of  Aristotle's  treatise  is  of  immediate  interest 
to  the  teacher  of  prose  composition.  This  seems  particularly 
true  of  Book  III,  Chapters  I-XII,  where  the  discussion  of 
style  is  taken  up.  The  student  should  try  to  discover  just 
what  portions  of  that  discussion  are  applicable  to  the  art  of 
written  exposition  and  persuasion.  He  is  urged  also  to  re- 
place Aristotle's  illustrations,  as  far  as  possible,  by  familiar 
examples  from  his  own  reading.  His  success  in  this  would  be 
a  fair  measure  of  his  care  in  grasping  Aristotle's  thought. 

Aristotle's  style  received  generous  praise  in  antiquity 
for  its  ease  and  grace  {"  eloquendi  suavilate  " — Quintilian, 
Inst.  Orat.  X,  I,  84),  its  "  sweetness,  abundance,  and  variety  " 
(Cicero,  seeGrote,  Aristotle,  1872,  Vol.  i,  pp.  43  ff.);  qualities 
characteristic  rather  of  literary  works  now  lost  than  of  his 


ARISTOTLE 


55 


scientific  works  that  have  come  down  to  us.  The  student 
should  not  lose  sight  of  the  question  to  what  species  of  compo- 
sition the  Rhetoric  belongs  and  what  style  would  be  appropriate 
thereto.  Like  the  preceding  selection  from  Wackernagel,  and 
hke  the  larger  part  of  Aristotle's  extant  writings,  this  is 
probably  a  more  or  less  expanded  form  of  the  lecture  notes 
used  by  a  scientific  teacher  in  addressing  an  audience  of 
younger  men. 

Most  of  the  translator's  foot-notes  arc  included.] 


Book  III 

There  being  three  proper  subjects  of  systematic  treatment 
in  Rhetoric,  viz.  (i)  the  possible  sources  of  proofs,  (2)  style, 
and   (3)  the  right  ordering  of  the  parts  of  the   chap.  i. 
speech,  the  first  of   these   has   been  already  dis-    The  three 

"^  subjects  of  a 

cussed.     We  have  ascertained  the  number  of  the   rhetorical 
sources  of  proofs,  which  are  three,  the  nature  of   *'"^^'^'^*^- 
these  sources,  and  the  reason  why  they  are  not  more  numer- 
ous, viz.    that   persuasion    is   invariably  effected   either  by 
producing   a   certain  emotion  in  the  audience  itself  or  by 
inspiring  the  audience  with  a  certain  conception  of  the  char- 
acter of  the  speaker  or  thirdly  by  positive  demonstration. 
The  sources  from  which  enthymemes  are  to  be 
derived   have  also    been    stated;    for  these   are 
both  special  and  common  topics  of  enthymemes.     We  have 
next  to  discuss  the  question  of  style,  as  it  is  not  enough  to 
know  what  to  say  but  is  necessary  also  to  know  how  to  say 
it,^  and  the  art  of  saying  things  is  largely  influential  in  im- 
parting a  certain  color  to  the  speech. 

The  first  point  which  was  naturally  the  subject  of  investi- 
gation is  that  which  is  first  in  the  natural  order,  viz.  the  sources 
from  which  facts  themselves  derive  their  persuasiveness,  the 
second  is  the  disposition  or  setting  out  of  the  facts  by  the  style, 


54  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

and  the  third,  which  has  never  yet  been  attempted,  aUhough 
it  has  the  greatest  weight,  is  the  art  of  *  declamation.  Nor 
is  it  surprising  that  declamation  should  have  been 
neglected;  for  it  has  only  lately  been  introduced 
into  the  tragic  art  and  rhapsody,  as  poets  were  themselves 
originally  the  declaimers  of  their  own  tragedies.  It  is  clear 
then  that  there  is  such  a  thing  as  an  art  of  declamation  in 
Rhetoric  as  well  as  in  Poetry;  and  indeed  it  has  been 
systematically  treated  by  Glaucon  of  Teos  among  others. 
fThe  art  consists  in  understanding  (i)  the  proper  use 
of  the  voice  for  the  expression  of  the  several  emotions, 
i.e.  when  it  should  be  loud  or  low  or  intermediate,  (2)  the 
proper  use  of  the  accents,  J  i.e.  when  the  tone  should  be 
acute  or  grave  or  intermediate,  and  (3)  the  rhythms  suitable 
to  each  emotion.  For  there  are  three  things  which  are  mat- 
ters of  such  investigations,  viz.  magnitude  or  volume  of  sound, 
harmony,  and  rhythm.  It  is  people  who  are  careful  about 
these  that  generally  carry  off  the  prizes  in  the  dramatic  and 
rhapsodical  competitions,  and  as  in  such  competitions  the 
influence  of  the  declaimers  or  actors  is  greater  nowadays 
than  that  of  the  poets,  so  is  it  also  in  pohtical  competitions 
owing  to  the  depraved  character  of  our  pohties.  But  up  to 
the  present  time  no  scientific  treatise  upon  declamation  has 
been  composed;  for  it  was  not  till  a  late  date  that  the  art  of 
style  itself  made  any  progress,  and  declamation  is  still  popu- 

*  Aristotle  uses  virbKpiffis  in  a  limited  sense,  confining  it,  as  he  says  below, 
to  the  management  of  the  voice  and  especially  excluding  delivery  or  gesticu- 
lation, which  is  treated  as  a  part  of  vir6Kpi<ni  by  Longinus  and  as  a  part  of 
actio  by  Cicero  and  Quintilian. 

t  Reading  avrr). 

X  The  "intermediate"  or  "middle"  accent  is  the  circumflex,  which  may  be 
regarded  as  a  combination  of  the  others.  It  is  clear  that  each  accent  marks 
a  particular  tone  of  voice,  and  that  the  rhetorical  harmony  {apfiovia)  con- 
sists in  a  due  variation  of  the  tones- 


ARISTOTLE 


55 


larly  considered,  and  indeed  is  rightly  supposed,  to  be  some- 
thing vulgar.  Still  as  the  entire  study  of  Rhetoric  has  regard 
to  appearance,  it  is  necessary  to  pay  due  attention  to  decla- 
mation, not  that  it  is  right  to  do  so  but  because  it  is  inevitable. 
Strict  justice  indeed,  if  applicable  to  Rhetoric,  v^ould  confine 
itself  to  seeking  such  a  delivery  as  would  cause  neither  pain  nor 
pleasure.  For  the  right  condition  is  that  the  battle  should  be 
fought  out  on  the  facts  of  the  case  alone;  and  therefore  every- 
thing outside  the  direct  proof  is  really  superfluous,  ahhough 
extraneous  matters  are  highly  effective,  as  has  been  said, 
owing  to  the  depraved  character  of  the  audience.  Never- 
theless attention  to  style  is  in  some  slight  degree  necessary 
in  every  kind  of  instruction,  as  the  manner  of  stating  a  fact  has 
some  effect  upon  the  lucidity  of  the  explanation.  Still  the 
difference  is  not  so  great  as  is  supposed;  these  tricks  of  style 
are  all  merely  pretentious  and  are  assumed  for  the  sake  of 
gratifying  the  audience,  and  accordingly  nobody  teaches  geom- 
etry after  this  fashion. 

The  art  of  declamation,  when  it  comes  into  vogue,  will  pro- 
duce the  same  effects  as  the  histrionic  art;  and  there  are  some 
writers,  e.g.  Thrasymachus  in  his  Rules  of  Pathos  ^, 

^  The  art  of 

(eXeot),  who  have  in  a  shght  measure  attempted  rhetorical 
to  treat  it.  The  truth  is  that  a  capacity  for  de-  Reclamation. 
claiming  or  acting  is  a  natural  gift,  comparatively  free  from 
artistic  regulations,  although  it  may  be  reduced  to  an  art  in 
its  application  to  style.  Hence  it  is  that  people  who  possess 
this  faculty,  viz.  the  faculty  of  a  histrionic  style,  are  the 
winners  of  prizes  in  their  day,  as  are  also  rhetorical  actors; 
for  *  in  written  speeches  the  style  is  more  effective  than 
the  thought. 
The  origin  of  this  style  was  due,  as  is  natural,  to  the  poets. 

*  The  reference  is  to  the  epideictic  style  of  orators,  in  which  the  speeches 
were  more  usually  written  than  delivered. 


56  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

For  not  only  are  all  names  imitations,  but  there  was  the 
human  voice,  which  is  the  most  imitative  of  all  our  members, 
History  of  ready  to  their  use.  Thus  it  was  that  the  various 
style.  a^j.|-s^  rhapsody,  the  histrionic  art,  and  others,  as 

I  need  not  say,  were  composed.  And  it  was  because  the 
poets  were  thought,  despite  the  simplicity  of  their  sentiments, 
to  have  acquired  their  reputation  by  their  style  that  prose 
style  assumed  at  first  a  poetical  form,  as  e.g.  *  the  style  of 
Gorgias.  Nay  even  at  the  present  time  it  is  the  opmion  of 
most  uneducated  people  that  a  poetical  style  is  .  the  finest. 
This  however  is  an  erroneous  idea,  the  styles  of  prose  and 
of  poetry  being  distinct,^  as  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  the 
writers  of  tragedies  themselves  have  ceased  to  use  the  poetical 
style  as  once  they  did,  and  that,  as  they  passed  from  the 
tetrameter  to  the  iambic  measure  as  being  the  metre  which 
bears  the  closest  resemblance  to  prose,  so  too  they  have 
abandoned  all  such  words  as  depart  from  the  usage  of 
ordinary  conversation  and  were  employed  as  ornaments  by 
earlier  dramatic  writers  and  are  still  so  employed  by  the 
writers  of  hexameter  verse.  It  is  absurd  then  to  imitate  those 
who  themselves  no  longer  employ  their  old  style. 

It  clearly  results  from  all  this  that  we  should  be  wrong  in 
entering  upon  a  minute  discussion  of  all  the  possible  points 
of  style,  and  that  we  must  confine  ourselves  to  those  of 
rhetorical  style,  which  is  now  under  our  consideration.  The 
other  or  poetical  style  has  been  discussed  in  my  treatise  on 
Poetry.^ 

We  may  rest  content  then  with  our_study  of  that  question, 
and  may  take  it  as  settlcd'^iat  one  virtCie  of  style  is 
perspicuityT "'TliereTs~~an  evidence  of  this  in  the  fact  that 
our  speech,  unless  it  makes  its  meaning  clear,  will  fail  to 

*  Dr.  Thom]json  has  excellently  shown  the  poetical  nature  of  Gorgias's 
style  in  the  Appendi.x  to  his  edition  of  Plato's  Gorgias,  pp.  175  sqq. 


ARISTOTLE 


57 


perform  its  proper  function.*  Again,  style  should  be  neither 
mean  nor  exaggerated,  but  appropriate;  for  a  poetical  style, 
although  possibly  not  mean,  is  still  not  appropriate 
to  prose.  Among  nouns  and  verbs,  while  per-  virtues  or 
spicuity  is  produced  by  such  as  are  proper  or  usual,  graces  of 
a  character  which  is  not  mean  but  ornate  is  the 
result  of  the  various  other  kinds  of  nouns  enumerated  in  my 
t  treatise  on  Poetry.  The  reason  is  that  such  variation  im- 
parts greater  dignity  to  style ;  for  people  have  the  same  feeling 
about  style  as  about  foreigners  in  comparison  with  their 
fellow-citizens,  i.e.  they  admire  most  what  they  kno-ui_JeasL 
Hence  it  is  proper  to  invest  the  language  with  a  foreign  airj 
as  we  all  admire  anything  which  is  out  of  the  way,  and  therq 
is  a  certain  pleasure  in  the  object  of  wonder.^^~Tt'Ts  tmeThat 
in  metrical  compositions  there  are  many  means  of  producing 
this  effect,  and  means  which  are  suitable  in  such  compositions, 
as  the  subjects  of  the  story,  whether  persons  or  things, 
are  further  removed  jrom  common  life.  But  in  prose  these 
means  must  be  used  much  more  sparingly,  as  the  theme  0}  a 
prose  composition  is  less  elevated.  For  in  poetry  itself  there 
would  be  a  breach  of  propriety,  if  the  fine  language  were  used 
by  a  slave  or  a  mere  infant  or  on  a  subject  of  extremely  small 
importance.  It  is  rather  in  a  due  contraction  and  exaggera- 
tion that  propriety  consists  even  in  poetry.  Hence  it  is 
necessary  to  disguise  the  means  employed,  and  to  avoid  the 
appearance  of  speaking  not  naturally,  but  artificially.  For 
naturalness  is  persuasive,  and  artificiality  the  reverse;  for 
people  take  oft'ence  at  an  artificial  speaker,  as  if  he  were  prac- 
tising a  design  upon  them,  in  the  same  way  as  they  take  of- 
fence at  mixed  whines.     The  difference  is  much  the  same  as 

*The  sentence  ff-nixetov  yap  6ti  6  \6yos  .  .  .  rb  eavroO  epyov  is  parenthetical 
and  should  be  marked  off  from  the  context  by  colons, 
t  Poetic,  ch.  21. 


58  THEORIES    OE  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

between  the  voice  of  *Theodorus  and  those  of  all  the  other 
actors;  for,  while  his  appears  to  be  the  speaker's  own  voice, 
theirs  have  the  appearance  of  being  assumed.  But  the  decep- 
tion which  we  have  in  view  is  successfully  effected,  if  words 
are  chosen  from  ordinary  parlance  and  combined,  as  is  the 
practice  of  Euripides  and  indeed  is  the  practice  of  which  he 
was  the  first  to  set  an  example. 

Nouns  and  verbs  being  the  component  parts  of  the  speech 
and  the  nouns  being  of  all  the  various  kinds  which  have  been 
considered  in  my  f  treatise  on  Poetry,  it  is  only 
seldom  and  in  few  places  that  we  must  make 
use  of  J  rare  or  foreign  words,  §  compound  words  or  words 
specially  invented  for  the  occasion.  The  question  where 
they  should  be  used  we  will  discuss  at  a  later  timic;  the 
reason  for  using  them  but  rarely  has  been  already  stated, 
viz.  that  they  constitute  too  wide  a  departure  from  pro- 
priety. It  is  only  the  ||  proper  and  the  special  name 
of  a  thing  and  the  metaphor  that  are  suited  to  the  style  of 
prose  composition.  We  may  infer  this  from  the  fact  that  these 
alone  are  of  universal  use,  as  every  one  in  conversation  uses 
metaphors  and  the  special  or  proper  names  of  things.  It  is 
clear  therefore  that  successful  composition  will  have  an  air 
of  novelty  without  betraying  its  art  and  a  character  of 
lucidity,  and  these,  as   we    have   seen,    are   the    virtues  of 

*  Theodorus  was  a  famous  tragic  actor,  of  whom  a  story  is  told  in  the 
Politics  IV  (vil),  p.  129,  11.  8  sqq.  [p.  220  of  Welldon's  Translation]. 

t  Poetic,  ch.  21. 

{  Although  in  the  Poetic,  ch.  21,  p.  172,  1.  19,  Aristotle  says  X^7w  8i  Kipiov 
fiiv  (j5  xP^^"''"''-  ^KaffToi  ■y\G)TTav  bk  (f  ^repoi,  it  is  clear  that  in  the 
Rhetoric  he  includes  rare  and  obsolete  as  well  as  foreign  words  under  the 
general  term  yXurrai. 

§  That  SittXS  dvbuara  are  "compound  words"  is  clear  from  ch.  3  in  init., 
p.  116,  11.  4  sqq.     Cp.  Poetic,  ch.  21,  p.  172,  11.  11-14. 

II  There  seems  to  be  practically  no  difference  in  meaning  between  "proper" 
and  "special"  names;  they  are  the  names  employed  in  ordinary  speech. 


ARISTOTLE 


59 


rhetorical  speech.     Among  nouns,  while  it  is  *  homonymous 

nouns,   i.e.   words   which    have   several   meanings,    that    are 

serviceable  to  a  sophist,  as  being  the  instruments  of  logical 

deception,   it   is   synonyms  which   are  serviceable  to  a  poet. 

As   an   instance   of   proper  and  synonymous  words  I  may 

mention  e.g.  "going"  and  "proceeding";  for  these  are  both 

proper  and  also  synonymous. 

The  nature  of  these  several  terms,  the  number  of  kinds  of 

t  metaphor,  and  the  extreme  importance  of  metaphor,  both 

in  poetry  and  in  prose,  are  matters  which  have  been  discussed, 

as  we  said,  in  the  J  treatise  on  Poetry.     But  they  deserve  the 

§  more  diligent  attention  in  prose  in  proportion  as  prose  is 

dependent  upon  a  smaller  number  of  aids  than  metrical  com- 

.  .  .     .  -^ 

position.     Perspicuity,  "toG^h  pleasure,  and  an  air 

^^  /  V^  •  A-^         .,•'  >  Metaphors. 

oi  strangenes?'aTe''ni"anjfs^pecm,l  sense  eonveyeci 
by  means ^f"  metaphor,  and  for  his  metaphors  a  speaker 
must  depend  upon  his  own  originality.  The  epithets  and 
metaphors  used  must  alike  be  appropriate,  and  the  appro- 
priateness will  arise  from  ||  proportion  or  analogy;  otherwise 
there  will  be  a  glaring  impropriety,  as  the  contrariety 
of  contraries  is  rendered  most  evident  by  juxtaposition. 
It  is  our  business  on  the  contrary  to  consider,  as  a  scarlet 
robe   is   becoming   to   a   young    man,    what    it    is    that    is 

*  Aristotle's  own  definitions  of  a  "homonym"  and  a  "synonym"  will  ex- 
plain his  meaning  here:  bixdovvixa  Xiyerai  Siv  Svo/ia  fidvov  Koivbv,  6  5^  Karh 
ToCfo/Att  X670S  Trjs  omlai  ^repos  .  .  .  (Tvi>c!}vv/j.a  8^  Xiyerai  Siv  t6  re  bvofxa  KOivbv 
Kal  6  Kara  Toijvofj.a  \6yos  rfjs  ova  las  6  avrbs.     KaTT]yoplai  i. 

t  Retaining  /xera^opas. 

I  There  is  no  discussion  of  synonyms  in  the  Poetic,  perhaps,  as  Schmidt 
suggests,  because  the  book  in  its  present  form  is  more  or  less  imperfect. 

§  Reading  Toaovrt^. 

II  Proportion  or  analogy  (t6  a.vaXoyov)  in  the  choice  of  epithets  im- 
plies that  they  agree  in  meaning  with  the  words  to  which  they  belong,  and  in 
the  choice  of  metaphors  that  there  is  no  incongruity  or  confusion  in  the 
transference  of  ideas.     See  Mr.  Cope's  note. 


60  THEORIES   OE  STYLE   LV  LITERATURE 

becoming  to  an  old  man;  for  the  same  dress  is  not  appro- 
priate to  both.  Again,  if  it  is  your  wish  to  adorn  a  subject, 
Propriety  in  ^^^  proper  means~is"f6"'Borrow  your  metaphor 
the  use  of       from  things  Superior  to  it__.wiiich.  fall  under  the 

metaphors.  .-  '  V.       ' .       ^  i       i  . 

same  genus;  if  to  dispara,ge  it,  from  such  thmgs 
_as  are  inferior.  An  instance  of  this,  as  contraries  fall  under 
the  same  genus,  is  to  describe  one  who  begs  as  a  suppHant 
and  to  describe  one  who  prays  as  a  beggar,  praying  and 
begging  being  both  forms  of  rec|uest.  It  was  thus  that 
Iphicrates  called  Callias  a  *  mendicant  priest  instead  of  a 
torchbearer  in  the  Mysteries,  and  Callias  replied  that  he 
could  never  have  been  initiated  or  he  would  not  have  made 
such  a  mistake.  The  fact  is  that  both  are  offices  of  divine 
worship,  but  the  one  is  an  honorable  office  and  the  other 
an  ignoble  one.  Again,  while  somebody  calls  actors  mere 
f  parasites  of  Dionysus,  they  call  themselves  artists;  both 
these  terms  are  metaphorical,  but  one  is  defamatory  and  the 
other  the  contrary.  Again,  pirates  nowadays  style  them- 
selves purveyors;  and  by  the  same  rule  one  may  describe 
crime  as  error,  error  as  crime,  and  stealing  as  either  taking  or 
plundering.     Such  a  phrase  as  that  of  Telcphus  in  Euripides 

"  Lord  of  the  oar  and  setting  forth  to  Mysia  " 

is  a  breach  of  propriety,  as  the  word  "  lording  "  is  too  pom- 

*  The  5q.5ovx^o-  was  a  high  hereditary  office  in  the  ritual  of  the  Eleu- 
sinian  Demeter.  A  fXTiTayvpT-qs,  on  the  other  hand,  was  no  better  than 
a  begging  friar  who  collected  alms  at  the  festival  of  Cybele  or  some  other 
deity.     See  Lobeck,  Aglaophamus,  p.  629. 

t  "Parasites  of  Dionysus,"  i.e.  hangers-on  of  the  god  who  was  the  pre- 
siding deity  of  the  drama.  It  is  to  be  noticed  that  the  Aristotelian  use  of 
fx.eTa<popd  is  considerably  wider  than  that  of  "metaphor"  in  English. 
Any  transference  of  a  word  from  its  proper  or  ordinary  application  to 
another  would  be  a  /j.eTa<f)opd,  whether  it  involved  a  comparison  or  not. 
.See  the  definition  given  in  Poetic,  ch.  21,  p.  172,  11.  22-25,  ^"<^  ^he  illustrations 
of  it  which  follow;   also  Mr.  Cope's  Introduction,  Appendix  k  to  Book  iii. 


ARISTOTLE  6 1 

pous  for  the  subject,  and  accordingly  the  *  deception  is  un- 
successful. A  mistake  may  be  made  too  in  the  mere  syllal)les 
of  a  word,  if  they  are  not  significant  of  sweetness  in  a  voice. 
It  is  thus  that  Dionysius  the  fBrazen  in  his  elegies  calls  poetry 
"  Calliope's  screeching,"  as  both  'poetry  and  screeching  arc 
voices  or  sounds;  but  his  metaphor  is  only  a  sorry  one,  as 
the  sounds  of  screeching,  unlike  poetical  sounds,  possess  no 
meaning.  Again,  the  metaphors  should  not  be  far-fetched, 
but  derived  from  cognate  and  homogeneous  subjects,  giving 
a  name  to  something  which  before  was  nameless,  and  mani- 
festing their  cognate  character  as  soon  as  they  are  uttered. 
There  is  a  metaphor  of  this  kind  in  the  popular  enigma 

t  "  A  man  on  a  man  gluing  bronze  by  the  aid  of  fire  I  discovered," 

for  the  particular  process  was  nameless,  but,  as  both  processes 
are  kinds  of  application,  the  author  of  the  enigma  described 
the  application  of  the  cupping-glass  as  gluing.  It  is  generally 
possible  in  fact  to  derive  good  metaphors  from  well-constructed 
enigmas;  for  as  every  metaphor  conveys  an  enigma,  it  is  clear 
that  a  metaphor  derived  jrom  a  good  enigma  is  a  good  one. 
Again,  a  metaphor  should  be  derived  from  something  beauti- 
ful, and  the  beauty  of  a  noun,  as  Licymnius  says,  and  simi- 
larly its  ugliness,  resides  cither  in  the  sound  or  in  the  sense. 
There  is  a  third  point  to  be  observed  in  regard  to  metaphors, 
which  upsets  the  sophistical  theory.  For  it  is  not  true,  as 
Bryson  said,  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  use  of  foul  lan- 

*  "The  deception,"  i.e.  the  concealment  of  art  wliich  the  speaker  or  writer 
has  in  view.     See  p.  113,  11.  11  and  24. 

t  Dionysius,  an  Athenian  rhetorician  of  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  is  said  by 
Athemeus  (Deipri.  xv.  p.  669  d)  to  have  received  the  name  or  nickname  of 
"•he  Brazen,"  as  having  first  suggested  the  use  of  bronze  money. 

I  Athenffius  {Deipn.  x.  p.  452  c.)  gives  the  second  line  of  the  enigma  or 

riddle  thus : 

o'vTu  (TvyKdWios  ware  ffi/vaip-a  iroiuf. 


62  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

guage,  because,  whether  you  say  one  thing  or  another,  your 
meaning  is  the  same.  For  one  word  is  more  properly  ap- 
phcable  to  a  thing  than  another  and  more  closely  assimilated 
to  it  and  more  akin  to  it,  as  setting  the  thing  itself  more  vividly 
before  our  eyes.  Nor  again  is  it  *  under  the  same  conditions 
that  a  word  signifies  this  or  that,  and  hence  on  this  ground 
alone  we  must  regard  one  word  as  being  fairer  or  fouler  than 
another;  for  although  both  words  signify  the  fairness  or  foul- 
ness of  a  thing,  it  is  not  merely  in  respect  of  its  fairness  or  foul- 
ness that  they  signify  it,  or,  if  so,  at  least  they  signify  it  in 

different  degrees.  The  sources  from  which  meta- 
metap^hore      phors  should  be  derived  are  such  things  as  are 

beautiful  either  in  sound  or  in  suggestiveness  or 
in  the  vividness  with  which  they  appeal  to  the  eye  or  any 
other  sense.  Again,  one  form  of  expression  is  preferable 
to  another  e.g.  "  rosy-fingered  dawn  "  to  "  purple-fingered," 
while  "  red-fingered  "  is  worst  of  all.     In  regard  to  f  epithets 

again,  the  apphcations  of  them  may  be  derived 

Epithets.  r    7  .  7         ^ 

from  a  low  or  foul  aspect  of  things,  as  when  Orestes 
is  called  a  matricide,  or  from  the  higher  aspect,  as  when  he 
is  called  the  avenger  of  his  father.  There  is  a  similar  instance 
in  the  story  oj  Simonides  who,  when  the  victor  in  the  mule- 
race  offered  him  only  a  poor  fee,  refused  to  compose  an  ode, 
pretending  to  be  shocked  at  the  idea  of  composing  it  on  "semi- 
asses,"  but  on  receipt  of  a  proper  fee  wrote  the  ode  beginning 

"  Hail !  daughters  of  storm -footed  mares," 

although  they  were  equally  daughters  of  the  asses.    The  same 

*  The  difference  seems  to  be  that,  altliough  two  words  or  expressions  may 
have  practically  the  same  meaning,  yet  one  may  suggest  widely  different  asso- 
ciations from  the  other. 

t  Aristotle  uses  iirlderov  to  denote  any  word  or  words  describing  or  char- 
acterizing a  "  proper  noun,"  not  merely  a  single  adjective,  as  the  English 
"epithet." 


ARISTOTLE  ^^ 

result  may  be  attained  by  the  use  of  diminutives.  *  By  a 
diminutive  I  mean  that  which  diminishes  either  the  good  or 
the  evil  of  a  word,  and  I  may  cite  as  instances  the  banter  of 
Aristophanes  in  the  Babylonians  where  he  substitutes  "  gold- 
let  "  (xpvo-i'^f^P'^ov)  for  gold,  "  tunickin  "  (l/xariBdptov)  for 
tunic,  "  wee  little  censure  "  (Xoihopijixdriov)  for  censure,  and 
"  sickiness  "  {voa-Tjfxdriov)  for  sickness.  But  in  the  use  both 
of  epithets  and  of  diminutives  it  is  necessary  to  be  cautious 
and  never  to  lose  sight  of  the  mean. 

Faults  of  taste  occur  in  four  points  of  style.  Firstly,  in  the 
use  of   compound   words,   such   as  Lycophron's 

Chap   III 

*' many-visaged  heaven,"  "vast-crested  earth,"  Faults  of 
and  "narrow-passaged  strand,"  or  Gorgias's  ex-  *^^^^  , 
pressions,  "a  beggar-witted  toady,"  or  "forsworn 
and  fforever-swom."  There  are  instances  too  in  Alcidamas, 
e.g.  "his  soul  with  passion  teeming  and  his  face  fire-painted 
seeming,"  or  "  he  thought  their  zeal  would  prove  end- 
executing,"  or  "  his  words'  persuasiveness  he  made  end- 
executing,"  or  "steel-gray  the  ocean's  basement";  for  all 
these  are  terms  which,  as  being  compound,  have  a  certain 
poetical  character.  A  second  cause  of  faults  of  taste  is  the 
use  of  rare  words,  as  when  Lycophron  called  Xerxes  "  a  vasty 
man,"  and  Sciron  "  a  man  of  bale,"  or  when  Alcidamas  said 
"  baubles  in  poetry,"  "  the  retchlessness  of  his  nature,"  and 
J  "  whetted  with  his  mind's  unadulterated  ire."  A  third 
fault  lies  in  the  misuse  of  epithets,  i.e.  in  making  them 
either  long  or  unseasonable  or  very  numerous.     For  if  in 

*  v7roKop<Ti/i6i  may  properly  be  rendered  in  this  place  by  the  neutral 
word  "diminutive,"  but  it  would  not  ordinarily  include  such  diminutives 
as  are  of  a  depreciatory  or  censorious  character. 

t  It  is  apparently  the  compound  KaTevopKi)(ravTaL%  \\  hich  is  objection- 
able, as  the  simpler  form  eiiopK-fiaavTas  would  express  the  meaning. 

%  The  7XwTTa  here,  as  Mr.  Cope  says,  is  the  word  Ted-riyixivov,  which  is  rare 
and  generally  poetical  in  its  usage. 


64  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

poetry  it  is  proper  to  speak  e.g.  of  "  white  milk,"  such 
epithets  in  prose  are  in  any  case  inappropriate,  and,  if 
there  arc  too  many  of  them,  they  expose  the  art  of  the  style 
and  show  it  to  be  simple  poetry.  I  do  not  say  that  epithets 
should  not  be  used,  as  they  are  means  of  diversifying 
the  ordinary  style  and  giving  the  language  a  certain  air  of 
strangeness.  But  it  is  important  to  keep  the  mean  ever  in 
view,  as  exaggeration  is  worse  in  its  effect  than  carelessness; 
for  while  in  the  latter  there  is  only  the  absence  of  a  merit, 
in  the  former  there  is  a  positive  defect.  Hence  the  epithets 
of  Alcidamas  appear  tasteless,  being  so  numerous  and  prohx 
and  obtrusive  as  to  be  used  not  like  a  seasoning  of  the  meat  so 
much  as  like  the  meat  itself.  He  says  e.g.  not  "  sweat  " 
simply  but  "  the  damp  sweat,"  not  "  to  the  Isthmian  games  " 
but  "to  the  general  assembly  of  the  Isthmian  games," 
not  "laws"  but  "laws  the  sovereigns  of  states,"  not  "by 
running  "  but  "  with  the  impulse  of  his  soul  at  a  run,"  not 
"  a  museum  "  but  "  a  museum  of  all  Nature  that  he  had 
inherited."  Again,  he  says  "  the  thought  of  his  soul  suUen- 
visaged,"  "artificer"  not  "of  favor"  but  "of  universal 
favor,"  "  steward  of  the  pleasure  of  his  audience,"  "  con- 
cealed "  not  "with  boughs  "  but  "  with  the  boughs  of  the 
wood,"  "  he  clothed  "  not  "  his  body  "  but  "  his  body's 
shame,"  "his  soul's  ambition  counterfeit"  (avTifjbt/xo<;)  —  a 
word  which  is  at  the  same  time  a  compound  and  an  epithet, 
so  that  the  prose  is  converted  into  poetry  —  and  "  the  excess 
of  his  villainy  so  abnormal."  The  consequence  is  that  this 
poetical  diction  by  its  impropriety  is  a  source  of  absurdity 
and  tastelessness  as  well  as  of  obscurity  from  its  verbiage; 
for  any  speaker  who  accumulates  words,  where  the  audience 
is  already  cognizant  of  the  su])ject  on  which  he  is  speaking, 
involves  it  in  an  ol)scurity  which  is  fatal  to  distinctness.  Peo- 
])le  }or  the  most  part  only  use  compound  words  when  what  they 


ARISTOTLE  65 

want  to  express  is  destitute  of  a  name  and  the  word  tliey 
use  is  easily  compounded,  as  e.g.  pastime  (xpovoTpi^elv);  if 
this  is  overdone,  the  effect  is  wholly  poetical.  Hence  it  is 
that  compound  words  are  eminently  serviceable  to  dithyram- 
bic  poets,  whose  style  is  noisy;  rare  words  to  epic  poets,  as 
epic  poetry  is  a  stately  and  austere  style  0}  composition;  and 
metaphors  to  iambic  wTiters,  for  the  iambic  is  now  the  vehicle 
oj  tragic  poetry,  as  I  have  remarked.  There  is  a  fourth  and  last 
fault  of  taste  which  is  shown  in  the  use  of  metaphors;  for 
metaphors  too  may  be  inappropriate,  whether  from  their  ab- 
surdity —  for  they  are  used  by  comic  as  well  as  by  tragic  poets 
—  or  from  an  excess  of  dignity  and  tragic  effect,  or  again  they 
may  be  obscure,  if  they  are  far-fetched.  Take  e.g.  such  ex- 
pressions as  Gorgias's,  "  a  business  green  and  raw  "  (a  case 
of  obscurity),  or  "  you  sowed  in  shame  and  reaped  in  misery," 
which  is  too  poetical,  or  Alcidamas's  description  of  philoso- 
phy as  "an  outpost  against  the  laws,"  and  of  the  Odyssey  as 
"  a  fair  mirror  of  human  life,"  or  his  phrase  "  importing  no 
such  bauble  into  poetry,"  all  which  for  the  reasons  stated  fail 
in  persuasiveness.  Gorgias's  address  to  the  swallow,  when 
she  dropped  her  leavings  on  his  head,  is  in  the  best  style  of 
tragic  diction,  "  For  shame,"  he  said,  "  Philomela."  The 
point  is  that  it  was  not  a  shame  to  a  bird  to  have  behaved  so, 
but  it  was  to  a  maiden.  It  was  a  happy  thought  then  in  his 
censure  to  speak  of  her  as  she  was  rather  than  as  she  is. 

The  simile  too  is  a  metaphor,  the  difference  between  them 
being   only  slight.     Thus  when   Homer   says   of 
Achilles  that  *  "  he  rushed  on  like  a  lion,"  it  is  a   simtres. 
simile;  but  when  he  says  that  "  he  rushed  on,  a 
very  lion,"    it   is    a   metaphor,    for   here,    as  valor   is   an 
attribute    common    to    both,   he    transfers   to   Achilles   the 

*  The  words  quoted  are  not  found  in  the  existing  poems  of  Homer,  but  for 
the  simile  see  Iliad,  xx.  164. 
F 


66  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

metaphorical  appellation  of  "  a  lion."  The  simile  is  useful 
in  prose  as  well  as  in  poetry,  although  it  should  not  be 
employed  except  sparingly,  as  it  has  a  poetical  character. 
The  use  of  similes  must  be  much  the  same  as  that  of 
metaphors;  for  they  are  metaphors,  but  with  the  difference 
already  stated. 

An  instance  of  a  simile  is  e.g.  that  which  Androtion  applied 
to  Idricus  when  he  said  that  he  resembled  curs  which  have 
been  just  unchained;  for  they  fly  at  you  and  bite  you,  and  so 
Idricus  was  vicious  when  just  unchained.  Another  isTheoda- 
mas's  comparison  of  *  Archidamus  to  Euxenus  minus  his 
knowledge  of  geometry;  which  is  a  f  proportional  simile,  for 
vice  versa  Euxenus  will  be  Archidamus  plus  his  geometrical 
knowledge.  Another  is  the  expression  in  the  %  Republic  of 
Plato  that  people  who  despoil  the  dead  are  like  curs  that  bite 
the  stones  thrown  at  them  without  touching  the  thrower. 
Or  §  Plato's  comparison  of  the  commons  to  a  ship's  captain 
who  is  strong  but  a  little  deaf.  Or  the  ||  simile  which  he  ap- 
plies to  poets'  verses,  that  they  are  like  blooming  faces 
without  beauty;  for  such  faces,  when  the  bloom  has  faded 
from  them,  and  poets'  verses,  when  they  are  broken  up,  both 
entirely  lose  their  former  appearance.  Or  the  similes  of 
Pericles  about  the  Samians,  that  they  are  hke  children  which 
take  their  sop  but  cry  while  taking  it,  or  about  the  Boeotians, 
that  they  are  hke  their  own  holm-oaks,  for,  as  these  are  cut 
to  pieces  by  axes  made  of  their  own  wood,  so  are  the  Boeotians 
cut  to  pieces  by  civil  war.     Again,  there  is  ^  Demosthenes's 

*  Euxenus  and  Archidamus  are  unknown,  except  from  this  passage. 

t  The  "proportional"  or  "reciprocal"  metaphor  is  illustrated  in  the 
Poetic,  ch.  21,  p.  173,  11.  I  sfjq.     See  infra,  1.  29,  p.  132,  1.  3. 

X  Republic,  V.  p.  469  d.e.  §  Republic,  vi.  p.  488  a. 

II  Republic,  x.  j3.  601  B. 

^  It  is  doubtful  whether  this  is  the  great  orator  or  not ;  his  name  has  been 
mentioned,  but  not  any  passage  of  his  speeches,  p.  106,  1.  28. 


ARISTOTLE  6/ 

comparison  of  the  commons  to  seasick  passengers  on  board 
ship;   or  Democrates's  of  the  orators  to  nurses  who  swallow 
the  bonbon  themselves,  while  they  slobber  the  children  with 
kisses;   or  Antisthenes's  of  Cephisodotus  the  thin  to  frankin- 
cense, as  giving  pleasure  only  by  wasting  away. 
For  these  may  all  be  expressed  either  as  similes   mSaphor"^ 
or  as   metaphors,  so  that  such  as  are  popular, 
when  expressed  as  metaphors,  will  be   always  convertible 
into  similes,  and  the  similes,  if  the  explanatory  words  are 
omitted,   into  metaphors.     But  the   proportional  metaphor 
should  be  always  transferable  reciprocally  and  to  either  of 
the  two  congeners;  e.g.  if  the  goblet  is  the  shield  of  Dionysus, 
then  the  shield  may  be  properly  called  the  goblet  of  Ares. 

Such  then  being  the  component  elements  of  the  speech, 
the   basis  of   style   is   purity  of  language.     But   chap.  v. 
purity    of    language  falls  under  five  heads ;  and   s.*>'^*^  ^^'^- 
of  these  the  first  is  the  proper  use  of  connecting   Purityof 
words  or  clauses,  i.e.  when  they  are  made  to  cor-   ^^"g^^g^- 
respond  in  the  natural   relation  of  priority  or  posteriority 
to  one  another,  as  some  of  them  require,  e.g.  as  /xev  and  iyoo 
fiev  require  Be  and  o  8e  as  correlatives.     But  the  correspond- 
ence should  take  place  before  the  audience  has  had  time  to 
forget  the  first  of  the  words  or  clauses,  and  the  two  should  not 
be  too  widely  separated,  nor  should  another  such  word  or 
clause  be  introduced  before  the  one  required  as  a  correlative 
to  the  first,  as  such  a  construction  is  generally  inappropriate. 
Take  e.g.  the  sentence  "  But  I,  as  soon  as  he  told  it  me  — 
for  Cleon  came  to  me  with  prayers  and  expostulations  —  set 
out  with  them  in  my  company."     In  cases  like  this  there  are 
sometimes  a  number  of   connecting  words  or  clauses  pre- 
maturely introduced  before  the  one  which  is  required  as  a 
correlative.     But  if  the  clauses  intervening  between  the  prot- 
asis and  the  verb  "  set  out  "  are  numerous,  the  sentence  is 


68  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

rendered  unintelligible.  A  second  point  of  purity  of  style  con- 
sists in  calling  things  by  their  own  proper  names  rather  than 
by  general  or  class-names/  A  third  consists  in  the  avoidance 
of  ambiguous  terms,  but  this  only  if  your  purpose  is  not  op- 
posed to  perspicuity.  People  use  ambiguous  terms  when  they 
have  nothing  to  say  but  make  a  pretence  of  saying  something, 
and,  if  this  is  their  object,  they  express  themselves  ambigu- 
ously in  poetry,  as  e.g.  Empedocles;  for  the  length  of  their 
circumlocution  imposes  upon  their  audience  and  affects  it  as 
common  people  are  affected  in  the  presence  of  soothsayers; 
for  they  signify  their  assent  to  such  ambiguous  phrases  as 

"  If  Croesus  pass  the  Halys,  he  shall  whelm 
A  mighty  empire." 

Again,  it  is  because  there  is  less  opportunity  of  error  in 
generalities  that  soothsayers  express  themselves  in  general 
terms  of  their  subject ;  for  as  in  the  *  game  of  "  odd  and  even" 
you  have  a  better  chance  of  being  right  if  you  say  simply 
"  odd  "  or  "  even  "  than  if  you  specify  the  number  of  things 
held  in  the  hand,  so  too  in  prophecy  you  have  a  better  chance  if 
you  say  that  a  thing  will  be  than  if  you  say  when  it  will  be, 
and  this  is  the  reason  why  soothsayers  never  go  so  far  as  to 
specify  the  date  of  an  event.  All  these  circumlocutions,  am- 
biguities, and  the  like  must  be  classed  together  as  so  many 
faults,  and  must  therefore  be  avoided,  unless  you  have  some 
such  object  as  I  have  suggested.  A  fourth  point  is  to  observe 
Protagoras's  classification  of  nouns  gcncrically  as  masculine, 
feminine,  and  neuter;    for  it  is  important  that  the  genders 

*  The  Greek  game  known  as  dpTiaafiSs  is  briefly  described  by  Becker, 
Charicles,  Excursus  iii  to  Scene  vi;  Callus,  Excursus  ii  to  Scene  x.  It 
was  played  by  two  persons,  of  whom  one  would  hold  in  his  hand  a  number 
of  counters  and  the  other  would  guess  whether  the  number  was  odd  or  even, 
or  more  aLCuratcIv  what  the  number  was. 


ARISTOTLE 


69 


should  be  properly  assigned,  *  as  e.g.  ?)  ^'  iXOouaa  /cal  BiaXex- 
delaa  wxero.  A  fifth  is  the  correct  expression  oj  number,  i.e. 
many,  few,  or  unity,  as  e.g.  o'i  S'  iXOoure^  eTV-mov  fie. 

It  is  a  general  rule  that  the  composition  should  be  such  as 
is  easy  to  read  and  —  which  is  the  same  thing  —  easy  to  de- 
liver. But  this  will  not  be  the  case  where  there  are  many 
connecting  words  or  clauses  or  where  the  punctu- 

.       1.^^       ,,  .      ,,  .  .  r  TT  1    •  Punrtuation. 

ation  IS  dithcult,  as  m  the  writmgs  of  Heracleitus. 
It  is  no  easy  task  to  punctuate  his  writings,  from  the  difficulty 
--f  determining  to  which  of  two  words,  the  preceding  or  the 
following,  a  particular  word  in  his  sentences  belongs.  There  is 
an  example  of  this  difhcuhy  at  the  beginning  of  his  book, 
where  he  says,  "Although  this  divine  reason  exists  for  ever  men 
are  born  into  the  world  without  understanding";  it  is  impossible 
to  tell  to  which  of  the  words  "exists"  or  "are  born"  the  words 
"for  ever"  should  be  joined  by  punctuation.  Again,  you  are 
guilty  of  a  solecism,  if  in  writing  two  words  in  a 

11  r    -1  •  1  1     Zeugma. 

smgle  phrase  you  tail  to  assign  to  them  a  word 
appropriate  to  both.    Thus  //  you  take  e.g.  the  word  "sound" 
or  "color,"  the  participle  "seeing"  does  not  apply  to  both 
alike,  but  "perceiving"    docs.     And    you    become  obscure, 
if   in  seeking  to  introduce  a   numb.r   of  details 
in   the   middle    oj   a  sentence  you    do  not  com- 
plete the   sense  before  you  mention  them,  as  e.g.  if  you  say 
"  I  meant,  after  discussing  with  him  this,  that,  and  the  other, 
to  proceed"  rather  than  "I  meant  to  proceed  after  discussing 
with  him,  and  then  this,  that,  and  the  other  occurred." 
We  will  pass  now  to  dignity  of  style.    The  following  are  the 

*  The  point  of  the  illustration  is  the  agreement  of  the  feminine  participles 
with  the  preceding  feminine  relative.  But  Mr.  Cope  is,  I  think,  right  in 
arguing  that  the  "classes"  of  Protagoras  were  not  the  same  as  the  ordinary 
genders  of  classical  grammar  but  composed  (i)  male  agents,  (2)  female 
agents,  (3)  all  inanimate  or  inactive  things. 


70  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

causes  which  contribute  to  it.  Firstly,  to  use  a  definition 
instead  of  the  simple  name  of  a  thing,  to  say  e.g.  not  "a  circle " 

but  "a  plane  figure  which  is  at  all  points  equidistant 
0^0^^^'      ^^^^  ^^^  centre."     (If   brevity  is  the  object,  the 

contrary  should  be  the  rule,  viz.  the  substitution 
of  the  simple  name  for  the  definition.)  Secondly,  where 
the  subject  is  one  that  is  foul  or  indecorous,  if  the  foulness 
hes  in  the  definition,  to  use  the  name,  and  if  in  the  name,  to 
use  the  definition.  Thirdly,  to  employ  metaphors  and  epithets 
as  means  of  elucidating  the  subject,  being  on  your  guard  at 
the  same  time  against  a  poetical  style.  Fourthly,  to  put  the 
plural  for  the  singular,  as  the  poets  do  when  they  say  e.g. 

"  Unto  Achasan  harbors," 

when  there  is  only  one  harbor,  or 

"  Lo  !  here  the  manifold  tablet-leaves," 

meaning  a  single  leaf.  Fljthly,  *  not  to  combine  two  cases 
by  a  single  article  but  to  give  each  case  its  own  article,  as  in 
rri<;  yvvaLKO'i  tt}?  -qfierepa^.  (But  here  again  for  brevity's 
sake  the  contrary  t?}?  '^/xerepwi  r^vvaLic6<i.)  Sixthly,  to  use 
connecting  particles  or,  if  for  brevity's  sake  you  omit  the  con- 
necting particle,  to  preserve  the  connection,  saying  e.g.  iropev- 
OeU  Kal  BiaXe'x^det^;  or  TTopevOeh  SieXe^drjv,  riot  Tropevdeh  Sca- 
Xe;i^^ei?.  Another  useful  practice  is  Antimachus's  device  of  de- 
scribing a  thing  by  attributes  it  does  not  possess,  as  he  does 
in  the  case  of  Teumessus  in  the  f  lines  beginning 

"  There  is  a  low  and  wind-swept  crest," 

for  there  is  no  limit  to  this  method  of  amplification.    This 

*  The  instance  given  shows  that  Victorius,  whom  Mr.  Cope  follows,  is  right 
in  understanding  the  rule  to  mean  von  copulare  vincireque  uno  articulo  duos 
casus,  sed  utrique  suum  assignare. 

t  The  quotation  is  from  the  Thehais  of  Antimachus,  an  epic  poem  on  the 
theme  of  the  eTrrd  M  S^^ay.     Teumessus  was  a  hut  or  village  in  Boeotia. 


ARISTOTLE  7 1 

mode  of  treatment  by  negation  is  one  that  is  applicable  in- 
differently to  things  both  good  and  bad,  as  occasion  may  re- 
quire. It  is  the  source  of  the  epithets  which  poets  use,  such  as 
"  stringless,  lyrelcss  music  ";  for  they  add  privative  epithets, 
as  these  are  popular  in  proportional  metaphors,  *as  e.g.  in 
calling  the  trumpet-blast  "  a  lyreless  music." 

The  conditions  of  propriety  in  a  speech  are  that  the  style 
should  be  emotional  and  ethical,  and  at  the  same 
time  proportionate  to  the  subject-matter.  By  a  p^^^prjet  ' 
proportionate  style  I  mean  that  the  manner  of 
the  composition  should  not  be  slovenly  if  the  subject  is 
pompous,  or  dignified  if  it  is  humble ;  and  that  there 
should  be  no  ornamental  epithets  attached  to  unimportant 
words;  otherwise  the  composition  has  the  air  of  a  comedy, 
like  tCleophon's  poetry,  which  contains  some  expressions 
as  ridiculous  as  J  it  would  be  to  say  e.g.  "a  sovereign 
fig."  The  means  of  expressing  emotion,  if  the  matter 
is  an  insult,  is  the  language  of  anger;  if  it  is  impiety 
or  foulness,  that  of  indignation  and  of  a  shrinking  from  the 
very  mention  of  such  a  thing;  if  it  is  something  laudable, 
that  of  admiration;  if  something  pitiable,  that  of  depression, 
and  so  on.  This  appropriateness  of  language  is  one  means  of 
giving  an  air  of  probability  to  the  case,  as  the  minds  of  the 
audience  draw  a  wrong  inference  of  the  speaker's  truthfulness 
from  the  similarity  of  their  own  feelings  in  similar  circum- 
stances, and  are  thus  led  to  suppose  that  the  facts  are  as  he 
represents  them,  §  even  if  this  is  not  really  so.     It  should  be 

*  The  "proportional  "  metaphor  has  been  already  illustrated;   see  mar- 
ginal reference.     Here  the  "proportion"  would  apparently  be  this: 
Trumpet :  trumpet-blast ::  lyre :  music  of  lyre  (/x^Xos). 

t  A  tragic  poet  whose  name  occurs  more  than  once  in  the  Poetic. 

X  Omitting  &v  or  perhaps  better  el  before  etireiev. 

§  There  is  no  good  reason  for  omitting  the  clause  el  Kal  />7>  ovtus  «x«'>  '«'* 
6  X^yuv. 


72  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

added  that  a  listener  is  always  in  sympathy  with  an  emotional 
speaker,  even  though  what  lie  says  is  wholly  worthless.^  This 
is  the  reason  why  a  good  many  speakers  try  to  overwhelm 
the  audience  by  their  clamor.  This  method  of  proof  depend- 
ing on  external  signs  is  ethical,  as  the  appropriate  character- 
istics are  assigned  to  any  particular  class  or  moral  state.  I 
understand  under  "  class  "  the  different  periods  of  life,  boy- 
hood, manhood,  and  old  age,  the  sexes,  male  and  female,  or 
nationalities  such  as  the  Lacedaemonian  or  Thessalian;  and 
under  "  moral  states  "  such  as  determine  the  character  of  a 
person's  life,  as  it  is  not  every  such  state  which  influences  the 
characters  of  lives.  If  then  the  words  which  the  speaker  uses 
are  also  appropriate  to  the  moral  state,  he  will  produce  this 
ethical  effect ;  for  there  will  be  a  difference  both  in  the  language 
and  in  the  pronunciation  of  a  clown  and  an  educated  person. 
Another  means  of  moving  an  audience  is  the  trick  which  is 
used  ad  nauseam  by  speech  writers,  viz.  the  introduction  0} 
such  phrases  as  "  Who  is  not  aware?  ",  "  Everybody  is  aware," 
where  a  listener  is  shamed  into  an  admission  of  the  fact  for 
the  sake  of  participating  in  the  knowledge  which  everybody 
else  is  said  to  possess. 
The  question  of  opportuneness  or  inopportuneness  in  the 

use  of  any  rhetorical  device  is  one  that  belongs 
ness°'^^"' '^'     equally  to    all   the   species  of   Rhetoric.    There 

is  one  remedy  for  exaggeration  of  every  sort  in 
the  popular  rule,  that  a  speaker  should  *  anticipate  censure 
by  pronouncing  it  on  himself,  as  the  exaggeration  is  then 
regarded  as  correct,  since  the  speaker  is  aware  of  what 
he  is  doing.  Let  me  add  the  rule  of  not  employing 
simultaneously  all  the  different  means  of  proportion  or  cor- 
respondence, as  this  is  one  way  to  deceive  the  audience.  What 
I  mean  is  e.g.  if  the  words  used  are  harsh  in  sound,  not  to 

*  Reading  irpoeirnrX'^TTeiv. 


ARISTOILE 


73 


carry  the  harshness  into  the  voice  and  countenance  and  the 
other  appropriate  means  oj  expression  ;  for  the  result  of  so 
doing  is  that  the  nature  of  each  becomes  conspicuous,  whereas, 
if  you  use  some  and  omit  others,  although  you  equally  make 
use  of  art,  you  succeed  in  escaping  detection. 

It  is  a  general  result  oj  these  considerations  that,  if  a  tender 
subject  is  expressed  in  harsh  language  or  a  harsh  subject  in 
tender  language,  there  is  a  certain  loss  of  persuasiveness. 
The  multipHcation  of  compound  words  or  epithets  and  the 
use  of  strange  words  are  most  appropriate  to  the  language  of 
emotion ;  for  a  person  in  a  state  of  passion  may  be  pardoned, 
if  he  speaks  of  an  evil  as  "  heaven-high  "  or  "  colossal." 
The  same  excuse  holds  good  when  the  speaker  has  mastered 
his  audierlte  and  has  roused  them  to  enthusiasm  by  praise  or 
blame  or  passion  or  devotion,  as  *  Isocrates  e.g.  does  in  his 
panegyrical  speech,  where  he  says  at  the  end  "  sentence  and 
sense  "  (4>VM  '^^"^  'y^^M),  and  again  "  seeing  that  they 
brooked  it  "  (oiTive<i  eTXrjaav).  For  this  is  the  language 
of  enthusiasm  and  is  consequently  acceptable  to  an  audience 
in  a  state  of  enthusiasm.  It  is  suitable  to  poetry  for  the 
same  reason,  as  poetry  is  inspired.  It  must  be  used  thus 
or  else  ironically,  as  by  Gorgias  and  in  the  f  Phcedrus  of 
Plato. 

The  structyj£lof-4h«--style-sheuM-J3e-^iekhe^  nor 

whoHy'unrhythmical.     If  it  is  the  former,  it  lacks    ^        ,,,„ 

•'    ^  •'  * Chap.  VIII. 

persuasiveness  from  its  appearance  of  artificiality,    structure  of 
and- at  the  same  time  diverts  the  minds  of  the   *  ^^^y^^- 
audience  from  the  subject   by  fixing  their  attention  upon 

*  Of  the  expressions  cited  from  Isocrates,  the  first  is  a  misquotation ; 
and  as  the  point  seems  to  consist  in  the  jingle  of  words,  the  original  (pVf^V  5^ 
Kal  tivriij.r)v  Kal  86^av  {Paneg.  §  220)  would  be  more  appropriate.  In  the 
second  {Paneg.  §  no,  not  at  the  end  of  the  speech),  it  is  the  poetical  word 
fT\y](yav  which  gives  it  color,  although  the  mss.  of  Isocrates  have  iT6\fii}<Tav. 

t  See  e.g.  Phadnis,  pp.  238  d.,  241  e. 


74  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  return  of  the  similar  cadence,  so  that  they  anticipate 
its  coming  as  children  anticipate  the  answer  to  the  herald's 
summons,  "  Whom  chooses  the  freedman  for  his  attorney?" 
and  the  answer  is  * "  Clcon."  If  on  the  other  hand  the 
composition  is  wholly  unrhythmical,  it  has  no  definiteness, 
whereas  it  ought  to  be  definitely  limited,  although  not 
by  metre,  as  what  is  indefinite  is  disagreeable  and  incapable 
of  being   known.     It  is   t  number  which   is  the 

Rhythm.  ^  ' 

defining  or  limiting  principle  of  all  things,  and 
the  number  of  the  structure  of  style  is  rhythm,  of 
which  metres  are  so  many  sections.  Hence  a  ^prose 
composition— should  have  rhythm _but  no^r-^m^xe,  or"it 
will  be  a  poem.  BuT^the  rhythm  should  not  be  elabo- 
shed,  or  in  other  words  it  should  not  be  carried 
too  far. 

I  pass  now  to  the  three  kinds  of  rhythm.    The  heroic  rhythm 

is  too  dignified,  and  is  deficient  in  conversational 
rhythm"  harmony.    The    iambic    rhythm     on    the    other 

hand  is  the  very  diction  of  ordinary  life,  and  is 
therefore  of  all  metres  the  most  frequent  in  conversation; 
but  it  is  deficient  in  dignity  and  impressiveness.  The 
trochaic  rhythm  approximates  too  much  to  broad  comedy, 
as  appears  in  trochaic  tetrameters;  for  the  tetrameter 
is  a  tripping  rhythm  (rpo'xepo'i  pv6p,6<i).  There  remains  the 
paean,  which  has  been  used  by  prose  writers  from  Thrasy- 
machus  downwards,  although  they  did  not  understand  the 

*  It  was  part  of  Cleon's  policy  to  pose  as  the  champion  of  those  who,  like 
freedmen,  could  not  appear  for  themselves  in  Court,  and  the  children,  whether 
in  Aristotle's  own  day  or  later,  seem  to  have  caught  up  his  invariable  name. 

t  This  is  the  well-known  Pythagorean  principle ;  see  Ritter  and  Preller, 
Hisloria  Philosophia  Grcecce  et  Romano;,  §§  52  sqq.  Aristotle,  in  applying  it 
to  style,  means  that  words  which  are  themselves  formless  and  incoherent 
are  reduced  to  order  by  number,  i.e.  by  rhythm.  There  is  a  very  similar 
remark  relating  to  music  in  Plato,  Philehus,  p.  26  A. 


ARISTOTLE  75 

definition  of  it.  *  The  pcTan  is  the  third  rhythm,  and  is  closely 
connected  with  the  preceding  ones,  having  in  itself  the  ratio 
of  3  to  2,  while  they  have  the  ratios  of  i  to  1  and  2  to  i  re- 
spectively. The  ratio  of  3  to  2  is  connected  with  both  of  these, 
and  is  in  fact  the  mean  between  them;  and  this  is  the  ratio  of 
the  paean. 

While  the  other  rhythms  should  be  discarded,  partly  for 
the  reasons  which  have  been  already  given  and  partly  because 
of  their  metrical  character,  the  paean  should  be  adopted  m 
prose  compositions,  as  it  is  the  only  one  of  the  rhythms  named 
which  cannot  form  a  regular  metre  and  is  therefore  the  most 
likely  to  escape  detection.  It  is  the  fashion  —  a  wrong  fash- 
ion, as  I  think  —  at  the  present  time  to  use  the  same  paean 
both  at  the  beginning  and  f  at  the  end  of  sentences.  There 
are  two  opposite  kinds  of  paean,  of  which  one  is  suitable  to  the 
beginning  of  a  sentence  and  in  fact  is  so  employed;  it  is  the 
one  beginning  with  a  long  syllable  and  ending  with  three  short 

ones,  as  in 

AaXoyevh  elVe  AvKiav, 

or  '^(pvcreoKOfjLa  "E/care  Tral  Af09. 

The  other,  which  is  opposite  to  it,  has  three  short  syllables 
at  the  beginning  and  the  long  syllable  at  the  end,  as 

fiera  Be  <yav  vSarci  r   wKeavov  i^cfxtvLae  vv^. 

This  is  the  paean  which  properly  terminates  a  sentence;  for 
the  short  syllable  from  its  incompleteness  has  a  mutilated 

*  It  is  dear,  on  the  principle  of  a  long  syllable  being  equivalent  to  two 

short  ones,  that  the  parts  of  the  spondee  ( )  or  the  dactyl  (_  w  w),  which 

are  the  admissible  feet  in  hexameter  verse,  have  the  ratio  of  i  to  i,  those  of 
the  iambus  (w  _")  or  the  trochee  (_  w)  have  the  ratio  of  2  to  i,  and  those 
of  the  pa?an  (_  kj  w  <j  or  kj  \^  \^  _)  have  the  ratio  of  3  to  2. 

t  It  is  very  doubtful  whether  the  words  Kal  TeXevruvres  need  be  inserted 
in  the  text ;  Mr.  Cope  justly  says  Aristotle  would  be  likely  to  let  them  be 
mentally  understood. 


76  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

effect,  whereas  the  sentence  should  be  cut  off  by  the  jinal 
long  syllable,  and  its  end  be  marked  not  by  the  scribe  nor  by 
the  *  marginal  annotation  but  by  the  natural  rhythm. 

So  much  for  the  proof  that  the  style  should  be  rhythmical  and 
for  the  nature  and  structure  of  the  rhythms  which  make  it  so. 
The  style  must  be  either  jointed,  i.e.  united  only  by  its 
connecting  particles,  after  the  manner  of  modern  dithyrambic 
„  j„  preludes,  or  compact,  like  the  antistrophes  of  the 
Two  kinds  aucicnt  pocts.  The  jointed  style  is  the  original 
^  ^^^-  one,  as  in  -f  Herodotus,  e.g.  "The  following  is 
(i)jointe  ,  ^  statement  of  the  researches  of  Herodotus  of 
Thurii";  it  was  formerly  universal  but  is  now  confined 
to  a  few  writers.  By  a  "jointed  style"  I  mean  one  which 
has  no  end  in  itself  except  the  completion  of  the  sub- 
ject under  discussion.  It  is  disagreeable  from  its  endlessness 
or  indefiniteness,  as  everybody  likes  to  have  the  end  clearly 
in  view.  This  is  the  reason  why  people  in  a  race  do  not 
gasp  and  faint  until  they  reach  the  goal;  for  while  they 
have  the  finisking-poinJJbefoTe-tlieif-eye^thcy  are  insensible 
of  fatigue.  The  compact  style  on  the  Qt]ter3Sajd_isjthe 
/periodic;  and  I  mean  by  a  "  period  "  a  sentemm 
having  a^beginJujig--aiid^'-aa^£XiiL4ii^^  'a 

magnitude  which  admits  of  "bieing_jea&il3r-c5iTip¥ehended  at 
mce.  Such  a  style  is  agreeable  and  can  be  easily 
X  learnt:     It    is    agreeable,    as    being    the    opposite   of    the 

*  The  "marginal  annotation  "  (Gk.  vapaypacpri,  Lat.  intcrductus  librarii) 
would  answer  to  the  modern  full-stop. 

t  The  opening  passage  of  Herodotus's  History,  'HpoSirou  Qovplov  f)5'  iaTopltis 
dirddei^is,  is  cited  as  a  case  of  writing  where  there  is  no  attempt  to  build  up 
a  sentence  of  parts  subordinated  to  each  other,  but  the  sentence  is  a  simple 
clause  or  consists  of  clauses  which  are  merely  pieced  or  jointed  by  connecting 
particles. 

X  It  is  to  be  remembered  that  the  Greek  and  Roman  orators  were  in  the 
habit  of  getting  their  speeches  by  heart;  hence  the  importance  of  y-vrifii]  or 
memoria  in  a  treatise  on  Rhetoric. 


ARISTOTLE  77 

indefinite  style  and  because  the  hearer  is  constantly 
imagining  himself  to  have  got  hold  of  something  from 
constantly  finding  a  definite  conclusion  0]  the  sentence^ 
whereas  in  the  other  style  there  is  something  disagreeable 
in  having  nothing  to  look  forward  to  or  accomphsh.  It  is 
easily  learnt  too,  as  being  easily  recollected,  and  this  be- 
cause a  periodic  style  can  be  numbered,  and  number  is  the 
easiest  thing  in  the  world  to  recollect.  It  is  thus  that  every- 
body recollects  *  verses  better  than  irregular  or  prose  com- 
positions, as  they  contain  number  and  are  measured  by  it. 
But  the  period  should  be  completed  by  the  sense  as  well  as  by 
the  rhythm  and  not  be  abruptly  broken  off  like  the  iambics 
of  t  Sophocles 

"  This  land  is  Calydon  of  Pelops'  soil," 

for  a  wholly  erroneous  supposition  is  rendered  possible  by 
such  a  division,  as  e.g.  in  the  instance  quoted,  that  Calydon 
is  in  Peloponnesus. 

A  period  may  be  (i)  divided  into  members  or  clauses, 
(2)  simple.  If  it  is  the  former,  it  should  be  com- 
plete in  itself,  properly  divided  and  capable  of 
being  easily  pronounced  at  a  single  breath,  not  so  however 
at  the  arbitrary  division  oj  the  speaker  but  as  a  whole.  A 
member  or  clause  is  one  of  the  two  parts  of  a  period. 
A  simple  period  on  the  other  hand  is  a  period  consisting  of 
a  single  member. 

The  members  or  clauses  and  the  periods  themselves  should 

*  The  reason  alleged  depends  in  part  upon  the  etymological  connection 
of  fiirpa  with  ixerpeicrdai. 

t  The  line  belongs  really  to  the  Meleager  of  Euripides,  not  to  any  play  of 
Sophocles.  It  is  objectionable  in  Aristotle's  view,  because  the  rhythmical 
pause  comes  after  x^o""^'  but  the  pause  in  the  sense  after  ya'ia,  the  words 
IleXoire/as  x^<""^^  being  connected  with  the  next  line 

iv  dvTi.ir6pdfj.0LS  w^di  exovff  eiidal/wva. 


^8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

be  neither  truncated  nor  too  long.  If  they  are  too  short,  they 
often  make  a  hearer  stumble;  for  if,  while  he  is  hurrying  on  to 
the  completion  of  the  measure  or  rhythm,  of  which  he  has  a 
definite  notion  in  his  mind,  he  is  suddenly  pulled  up  by  a 
pause  on  the  part  of  the  speaker,  there  will  necessarily  follow 
a  sort  of  stumble  in  consequence  of  the  sudden  check.  If  on 
the  other  hand  they  are  too  long,  they  produce  in  the  hearer 
a  feeling  of  being  left  behind,  as  when  people  who  are  taking 
a  walk  do  not  turn  back  until  they  have  passed  the  usual  limit ; 
for  they  too  leave  their  fellow-walkers  behind.  Similarly 
periods  of  undue  length  become  actual  speeches  and  resemble 
a  dithyrambic  prelude  in  their  discursiveness.  The  result  is 
what  Democritus  of  Chios  quoted  as  a  taunt  against  Melanip- 
pides  for  writing  dithyrambic  preludes  instead  of  regular 
stanzas  or  antistrophes : 

*  "A  man  worketh  ill  to  himself  in  working  ill  to  his  neighbor, 

And  there  is  nought  to  its  author  so  ill  as  a  —  long-winded  prelude  " ; 

for  a  similar  taunt  may  be  suitably  applied  to  the  patrons  of 
long-winded  clauses.  Periods  in  which  the  clauses  are  too 
short  are  not  periods  at  all;  hence  such  a  period  drags  the 
audience  with  it  headlong. 

The  periodic  style,  which  is  divided  into  clauses,  is  of  two 

kinds,  according  as  the  clauses  are  simply  divided, 
Thepenodic  ^^  -^^  ^^^  sentence  t"I  have  often  wondered  at 

those  who  convened  the  public  assembhes  and 
Antithesis.      instituted    the    gymnastic    games,"   or    opposed, 

where  in  each  of  the  two  clauses  either  one  of  two 
contraries  is  placed  beside  the  other,  or  the  two  contraries 

*  The  second  line  is  a  parody  of  Hesiod's 

i)  8^  KaKT]  [iovXr]  T(f  ^ovkeicravri  KaKidTT). 

"£^70  K.  'Hfxipai,  263. 
t  A  quotation  from  Isocrates,  Paneg.  §  i. 


ARISTOTLE 


79 


are  connected  together  by  the  same  word,  as  *  "  Both  parties 
they  helped,  those  who  stayed  behind  and  those  who  went 
with  them ;  for  the  latter  they  won  a  new  land  larger  than  that 
which  they  possessed  at  home,  and  to  the  former  they  left 
sufficient  in  that  which  was  theirs  at  home."  Here  the  words 
"  staying  behind  "  and  "  going  with  them,"  the  ideas  "  suffi- 
cient "  and  "  larger,"  are  contrasted.  Another  instance  is 
t  "  to  those  who  wanted  money  and  to  those  who  desired  en- 
jo}Tnent,"  where  sensual  enjoyment  is  opposed  to  the  acqui- 
sition of  money.  Again,  "  It  often  happens  in  these  cases 
that  the  wise  are  unfortunate  and  the  fools  are  successful  "; 
or  "They  were  immediately  presented  with  the  prize  of 
valor  and  not  long  aftenvards  acquired  the  empire  of  the 
sea  ";  or  "To  sail  through  the  mainland  and  march  through 
the  ocean,  by  bridging  the  Hellespont  and  digging  through 
Athos  ";  or  "  Citizens  by  nature  but  divested  by  law  of  their 
citizenship  ";  or  "  Some  of  them  had  a  miserable  end,  and 
others  a  shameful  dehverance";  or  "In  private  life  using 
foreigners  as  domestic  servants  and  in  pubhc  hfe  suffering 
many  of  the  alhes  to  be  slaves  ";  or  "  Either  to  bring  them 
alive  or  to  leave  them  dead."  Another  instance  is,  the  remark 
which  somebody  made  about  Pitholaus  and  Lycophron  in  the 
Court  of  Law,  "  These  fellows,  who  when  at  home  used  to  sell 
you,  now  that  they  have  come  here,  have  purchased  you." 
All  these  are  instances  of  an  antithetical  style.  The  agreeable- 
ness  of  such  a  style  lies  in  the  fact  that  contraries  are  so  easily 
known,  especially  when  they  are  set  in  juxtaposition,  and 
that  it  is  a  style  which  has  a  resemblance  to  a  syllogism,  the 

*  Paueg.  §37;  but  the  words  are  not  quoted  exactly.  The  connection 
{iwl^ev^is)  lies  in  the  verb  uvqa-av,  which  governs  both  roi>s  inro/ielvavTas  and 
TO()s  aKoXovd-qffavras ;  the  juxtaposition  of  opposites  is  explained  in  the  text. 

t  The  following  quotations  are  all  taken  (although  sometimes  inexactly) 
from  the  same  panegyrical  oration  of  Isocrates.  Mr.  Cope  gives  the  refer- 
ences. 


80  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

rcfutative  syllogism  being  a  bringing  together  of  opposites. 

Such  then  is  the  explanation  of  antithesis.      *  Parisosis  is 

.     .  the  equality  of  the  members  or  clauses,  paromoiosis 

i  iinsosis. 

the  similarity  of  the  extremities,   i.e.  either  the 
Paromoiosis.   begij^^ingg  ^r  the  ends  of  the  sentences.     When 

it  is  at  the  beginning,  the  similarity  is  always  one  of  whole 
words,  when  at  the  end,  it  is  one  of  the  final  syllables,  as 
of  different  inflections  of  the  same  word  or  a  repetition  of  the 
same  word,  f 

But  the  same  sentence  may  combine  all  these  points,  being 
at  once  a  case  of  antithesis,  of  balance  of  clauses  (parisosis), 
and  of  similarity  of  terminations. 

The  beginnings  of  periods  have  been  pretty  fully  enumerated 
in  the  %  Theodectea. 

There  are  not  only  true  but  false  antitheses,  as  in  §  Epichar- 
mus. 

Having  discussed  and  determined  these  points,  we  have 
next  to  consider  the  sources  of  clever  and  popular  sayings. 
The  invention  of  such  sayings  is  the  work  of  natural  ability 
or  of  long  practice;    but  the  explanation  of  them  belongs  to 

*  It  is,  I  fear,  impossible  to  help  importing  Aristotle's  own  terms  into  Eng- 
lish. 

t  Aristotle  in  the  text  cites  the  following  instances:  (i)  of  initial  paro- 
moiosis, ayphv  yap  eXajSev  dpybv  wap  a^ToO  and  duprjTol  r  iwiXoi^o 
vapdppriTol  t  eir4e<Tat.v^  (2)  of  final  paromoiosis  C{i'^0i](rav  airbv  iraid iov 
T€T  oKivai,  dXXa  avTov  atrtov  y  eyo  v4vai,  and  ^v  irXelcTT  ais  5i  <ppov- 
rlffi  Kal  iv  i\axi<^Ta.ts  iXwiaiv,  (3)  of  varied  inflection  d^toj  5^  aradrji/ai 
XaX/coOj,  ovK  d^ios  Civ  xaX/coO,  (4)  of  repetition  av  S'  avrdv  Kal  ^Qvra  eXe7es 
KaKus  Kal  vuv  ypd(peis  kukCis,  (5)  of  syllabic  parallelism  t I  civ  e Trades  5ei- 
v6v,  el  &vdp'  eldes  dpybv; 

X  Upon  the  Aristotelian  Theodectea,  see  Mr.  Cope's  Introduction,  pp.  55  sqq. 

§  The  line  c] noted  is 

rbKa  fikv  iv  Trjvuv  iywv  ^v,  ri/ca  5^  irapd  titivols  iydjv, 

where  there  is  no  true  antithesis  between  rbKa  fiiv  and  rbKa  bk  or  between 
iv  T^ivw  and  napd  T-fjvoi%. 


ARISTOTLE  8 1 

the  present  treatise.     Let  us  enter  then  upon  a  complete 
enumeration  of  them.    We  may  start  with  the  assumption 
that  learning  without  trouble  is  naturally  agree- 
able to  everybody,  and  that,  as  names  or  words   ckvlrsa'- 
possess  a  certain  significance,  those  which  impart   i"8s 

(toi  offTtia). 

mstruction  to  us  are  most  agreeable.     Now  rare 

words  are  unintelligible  to  us,  and  the   proper  or  ordinary 

names  of  things  we  know  already.     It  is  metaphor  which  is  in 

the    highest   degree    instructive;    for    when    e.g. 

*  Homer  calls  old  age  "  the  sere,  the  yellow  leaf,"    ^^^^V^"^' 

o  '  -^  '        and  simile. 

he    imparts   instruction   and    knowledge  through 
the  medium  of  the  genus,  as  both  old  age  and  the  sere  leaf 
are  withered.    The  similes  of  poetry  again  produce  the  same 
effect,  and  hence  a  simile,  if  it  is  well  constructed,  shows 
cleverness.     For  the  simile,  as  has  been  already  said,  is  a 
metaphor  with  a  difference  only  in  the  mode  of 
statement.      Hence    it    is   less    agreeable,    being 
couched  in  longer  terms;  also  it  does  not  directly  say  that  one 
thing  is  another,  and,  as  this  is  not  said,  it  is  not  looked  for  by 
the  minds  oj  the  audience,  and  accordingly  there  is  no  oppor- 
tunity  of  instruction.     It    follows    in    regard    to 
enthymemes  as  in  regard  to  style  that  they  are   j^^J^ll 
clever,   if  they  convey  to    us  rapid   instruction. 
And  hence  it  is  that  the  enthymemes  which  are   popular 
are  not  such  as  are  superficial,  i.e.  such  as  are  perspicuous 
to  everybody  and  need  no  research,  nor  such  as  are  un- 
intelligible when  stated,  but  those  which  are  either  appre- 
hended at  the  moment  of  delivery,  even  though  there  was  no 
previously  existing  knowledge  of  them,  or  which  are  followed 
at  little  interval  by  the  minds  of  the  audience.     For  what  is 
virtually  instruction,  whether  immediate  or  subsequent,  takes 

*  Odyssey,  xiv.  214.     The  "sere  leaf"  will  perhaps  represent  Homer's 
KoXdur],  although  it  is  used  in  a  somewhat  different  train  of  thought. 
G 


82  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

place  in  these  cases,  but  not  otherwise.  These  being  then  the 
species  of  cnthymemes  which  are  popular,  if  considered  rela- 
tively to  the  meaning  they  convey,  relatively  to  style  they  may 
be  considered  in  respect  either  of  their  structure  or  of  the 
single  words  employed  in  them.  Enthymemes  are  popular 
from  their  structure,  if  it  is  antithetical,  as  e.g.  in  *  Isocrates, 
"  considering  the  peace  which  all  the  world  enjoyed  as  a  war 
against  their  own  private  interests,"  where  there  is  an  antithe- 
sis between  war  and  peace;  and  from  their  single  words,  if 
the  words  are  such  as  contain  a  metaphor,  and  this  a  metaphor 
which  is  neither  far-fetched  nor  superficial  (for  in  the  former 
case  it  is  difficult  to  comprehend  at  a  glance,  and  in  the  latter 
it  leaves  no  impression),  or  again,  if  they  vividly  represent 
the  subject  to  the  eye,  as  it  is  desirable  that  the  things  should 
be  seen  in  actual  performance  and  not  merely  in  intention. 
There  are  then  these  three  objects  to  be  ever  kept  in  view,  viz. 
metaphor,  antithesis,  and  vividness  of  representation. 

f  Metaphors  are  of  four  kinds,  and  of  these  the  pro- 
portional are  the  most  popular.  An  instance  of 
a  proportional  metauhor  is  the  saying  of  Pericles, 
that  "  the  blotting  out  of  the  youth  who  had  perished 
in  the  war  from  the  state  was  like  the  taking  of  the  spring 
out  of  the  year."  Another  is  the  saying  of  Leptines  about 
the  Lacedaemonians,  that  he  "would  not  have  the  Athenians 
look  on  quietly,  when  Greece  had  lost  one  of  her  eyes." 
Again,  Cephisodotus  expressed  his  indignation  at  the  eager- 
ness of  Chares  for  the  audit  of  his  accounts  in  the  Olynthiac 
war,  by  saying  that  he  had  %  "  driven  the  people  into  a 
choking  fit  by  trying  to  get  his  accounts  audited."  The 
same  Cephisodotus  in  one  of  his  exhortations  to  the  Athe- 

*  Phil.  §  82. 

t  The  four  kinds  of  metaphor  are  enumerated  in  the  definition  given  in 
he  Poetic,  ch.  21,  p.  172,  §§  22-25.  X  Reading  i-ya-ybwra. 


ARISTOTLE  83 

nians  told  them  they  ought  to  "  march  to  Eubcea  *  with  the 
decree  of  Miltiadcs  for  their  commissariat."  Again,  Iphi- 
crates  showed  his  indignation  at  the  truce  which  the  Athenians 
had  made  with  Epidaurus  and  the  maritime  states  by  saying 
that  they  had  "  stripped  themselves  of  their  journey-money  for 
the  war."  Pitholaus  called  the  f  Paralian  trireme  the  "  peo- 
ple's bludgeon  "  and  Sestos  a  J  "  corn-stall  of  the  Piraeus." 
Pericles  exhorted  the  Athenians  to  sweep  away  ^gina,  that 
"  eyesore  of  the  Piraeus."  Moerocles  said  he  was  every  whit  as 
virtuous  as  a  certain  respectable  citizen  whom  he  named,  as  the 
respectable  citizen  "  got  -^Z  P^r  cent  for  his  roguery  and  he 
himself  got  only  10  per  cent."  There  is  an  instance  too  in  the 
iambic  line  of  Anaxandrides  in  pleading  the  cause  of  somebody  s 
daughters  who  had  been  a  very  long  time  in  getting  married : 

§  "  The  ladies'  marriage-day  is  overdue." 

Similarly  Polyeuctus  made  the  remark  about  a  certain  para- 
lytic person  named  Speusippus  that  he  could  not  keep  him- 
self quiet,  "  although  Fortune  had  set  him  fast  in  the  pil- 
lory of  disease."  Cephisodotus  again  called  the  triremes 
II  "  painted  millstones,"  and  the  Cynic  Diogenes  called  the 

*  This  difficult  expression  seems  to  mean  that  the  Athenians  were  to 
march  without  any  regard  to  the  commissariat,  but  in  the  spirit  of  the  resolu- 
tion which  Miltiades  proposed  at  the  crisis  of  the  first  Persian  War.  It  is 
the  use  of  iwiairl^eadai.  in  conjunction  with  such  a  word  as  ^^0t(r/ia,  which 
is  in  Aristotle's  language  "metaphorical." 

t  The  Paralus  or  State  galley,  as  being  used  in  carrying  prisoners  of  state, 
might  be  called  the  people's  bludgeon  or  weapon  against  their  enemies. 

X  It  is  clear  that  Sestos  must  have  been  an  emporium  of  the  corn  which 
was  exported  from  the  coasts  of  the  Euxine  Sea  to  Greece. 

§  The  point  lies  in  the  legal  term  virep-^/xepos,  which  is  strictly  ajjpli- 
cable  to  somebody  who  has  failed  to  pay  a  fine  imposed  upon  him  within  the 
time  prescribed. 

II  It  must  have  been  the  grinding  exactions  in  which  the  triremes  were  em- 
ployed against  the  subject  States  of  Athens  that  gave  this  name  its  ap- 
propriateness. 


84  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

wine-shops  the  "  Athenian  *  pu]:)hc  messes."  /Esion  said 
that  the  Athenians  had  "  (h-ained  their  whole  city  into  Sicily  " 
(which  is  a  metaphor  and  a  metaphor  of  a  vi\id  kind); 
and  again  "  so  that  Greece  cried  aloud  "  (which  is  also 
in  some  sense  a  vivid  metaphor).  I  may  instance  too 
the  advice  of  Cephisodotus  to  the  Athenians  to  beware 
of  converting  many  of  their  f  xnoh-meetings  into  assemblies; 
or  the  address  of  %  Isocrates  to  those  "  who  fiock  to- 
gether at  the  general  festivals."  Another  example  is  the 
one  in  the  §  Funeral  Oration,  that  "Greece  might  well 
have  her  hair  cut  off  at  the  tomb  of  those  who  had 
perished  at  Salamis,  as  her  liberty  was  buried  in  the 
tomb  with  their  valor;"  for  had  he  only  said  that  she 
"  might  well  weep  for  the  valor  that  lay  buried  with 
them,"  his  expression  would  have  been  a  metaphor  and  a 
vivid  one,  but  the  addition  of  the  words  "  her  liberty 
with  their  valor  "  contains  a  sort  of  antithesis.  Similarly 
Iphicrates  said,  "The  course  of  my  argument  runs  through 
the  heart  of  Chares's  conduct  "  ;  this  is  a  |1  proportional 
metaphor,  and  the  phrase  "  through  the  heart  "  sets 
the  thing  vividly  before  our  eyes.  Again,  the  phrase  "  to 
invite  dangers  to  the  help  of  dangers "  is  a  vivid 
metaphor.    The    same    is    true    of    the    phrase    used    by 

*  (piSlria  was  the  Spartan  term  for  the  crvcrcrlria  w  liich  were  so  charac- 
teristic a  feature  of  the  I.ycurgean  legislation.     See  Po/ilics,  ii.  ch.  9. 

fThe  word  (rvvSpofiai  is  substituted  {or  ffvyKXi^rovi  {iKKXvfflas)  "extraor- 
dinary assemblies." 

X  Phil.  §  14.  It  is  the  strange  use  of  im^'Tp^x*""''*'.  •i'^  "f  cwdpo/xai  in 
the  last  exam])le,  that  makes  the  "metaphor." 

§  The  Funeral  Oration,  which  seems  to  be  here  ascribed  to  Isocrates,  is 
usually  regarded  as  the  c<)m])osilion  of  Lysias,  althougli  its  genuineness  has 
been  much  disputed. 

II  The  "proportion"  may  perhaps  be  expres.sed  thus: 

A  road:  a  country::  tlie  speech:  Ciiares's  conduct. 


ARISTOTLE  85 

*LycoIcon  in  behalf  of  Chal^rias,  "not  awed  even  by 
that  symbol  of  his  su])plication,  the  bronze  image,"  which 
was  a  metaphor  at  the  time  when  it  was  used,  although 
not  a  permanent  one,  as  it  is  only  in  the  hour  of  his 
peril  that  the  statue  can  be  said  to  supplicate,  but  a  vivid 
metaphor,  arising  from  f  the  supposed  animation  of  the  inani- 
mate memorial  of  the  services  he  had  rendered  to  the  State. 
Or  again  "  practising  in  every  way  meanness  of  spirit  "  is  a 
metaphor,  as  practising  is  a  species  of  increasing.  Or  Ihe 
saying  that  "  God  ht  up  the  light  of  reason  in  the  soul,"  both 
light  and  reason  being  means  of  illumination.  Or  again 
J  "  we  are  not  putting  an  end  to  the  wars  but  only  putting 
them  off,"  which  is  a  metaphor,  as  postponement  and  such  a 
peace  as  is  described  are  both  merely  means  of  delay.  Or 
again,  if  we  say  that  §  "  the  treaty  is  a  very  far  finer  trophy 
than  those  won  in  war;  for  that  is  commemorative  of  a  trifling 
success  and  a  single  chance,  whereas  the  treaty  commemo- 
rates the  issue  0}  a  whole  war  " ;  for  both  are  signals  of  victory. 
Or  lastly  ij  we  say  that  States  ||  "  pay  a  heavy  reckoning  in  the 
censure  of  mankind  ";  for  the  audit  or  reckoning  is  a  sort  of 
legal  damage. 

*  A  statue  of  Chabrias  with  his  shield  resting  on  his  knee  and  his  spear 
advanced,  had  been  erected  in  honor  of  his  victory  over  Agesilaus,  B.C.  378. 
Twelve  years  later,  when  Chabrias  himself  was  standing  his  trial,  his  advocate 
Lycoleon  must  have  pointed  to  this  statue. 

t  Reading  to  8.\pvxov  5^. 

X  Isocrates,  Paneg.  §  200.  The  "metaphor"  is,  I  think,  the  use  of 
dva^dWeadai,  as  a  peace  would  properly  be  said  not  to  "postpone"  but 
to  "terminate"  a  war. 

§  Ibid.  §211. 

II  The  word  evdyva,  meaning  properly  the  audit,  to  which  officers  of 
State  were  called  to  submit  at  the  expiration  of  their  term  of  office,  is  a])plied 
metaphorically  to  the  audit  which  states  or  nations  undergo  at  the  bar  of  hislor\-. 

A  reference  to  the  Poetic,  ch.  21,  is  necessary  for  the  understanding  of  the 
"metaphors"  cited  in  the  present  chapter. 


86  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

It  has  been  staled  then  that  the  sources  of  clever  sayings 

are  proportional  metaphor  and  vivid  or  ocular  representation 

of  the  facts;   but  we  have  still  to  say  what  v^e 

understand  by  such  representation  and  what  are 

the  means  of  producing  it. 

I  mean  that  expressions  represent  a  thing  to  the  eye,  when 
they  show  it  in  a  state  of  activity.      For  instance;    to  de- 
scribe a  good  man  as  *  "square"  is  a  metaphor, 

Vividness. 

as  a  good  man  and  a  square  are  both  perfect  o] 

their  kind;  but  it  does  not  signify  a  state  of  activity.    On 

the  other  hand  such  a  phrase  as  f  "  with  his  vigor  all  in  bloom  " 

or  \  "  thee  like  as  sacred  kine  that  roam  at  large"  or  in  the 

§line 

"  Then  the  Greeks  bounding  forwards," 

the  expression  "  bounding  "  is  energetic  as  well  as  metaphor- 
ical. It  is  the  same  in  Homer's  favorite  treatment  of  in- 
animate objects  as  animate  by  the  use  of  metaphor.  But  it  is 
always  by  representing  things  as  in  action  that  he  wins 
applause,  as  e.g. 

II  "  Down  down  again  to  the  valley  the  shameless  boulder  came  boimd- 

ing," 
or 

T[  "  the  arrow  flew," 
or  **  the  arrow 

"  yearning  for  its  mark," 
or  ff  the  spears 

"stood  fixed  in  earth  all  panting  to  taste  blood," 

or 

tt  "through  the  breast 
The  point  sped  quivering," 

*  Perhaps  "an  all-round  man"  would  better  give  the  idea  in  English- 
t  Isocratcs,  Phil.  §  12.  ^  Iliad,  xiii.  587. 

J  Ibid.  §.  150.  **  Ibid.  iv.  126. 

§  Euripides,  I phig.  in  Aid.  80.  ft  Ibid.  xi.  573. 

WOdyssey,  xi.  598.  %%  i^id.  xv.  542, 


ARISTOTLE  8; 

for  in  all  these  instances  the  living  character  of  the  expres- 
sions invests  the  objects  w^ith  an  appearance  of  activity, 
shamelessness,  cjuivering  eagerness,  and  the  like  being  so 
many  forms  of  activity.  These  expressions  Homer  applied 
to  the  objects  by  means  of  proportional  metaphor;  for*  as 
the  stone  is  to  Sisyphus,  so  is  a  shameless  person  to  the  victim 
of  his  shamelessness.  But  in  his  most  approved  similes  too 
he  treats  inanimate  things  in  the  same  way,  e.g.  in  the  line 
"  Waves  that  are  arched,  foam -crested,  some  foremost,  others  pursuing"; 

for  he  represents  them  all  as  moving  and  living,  and  activity 
is  a  form  of  motion. 

It  is  proper  to  derive  metaphors,  as  has  been  said  before, 
from  objects  which  are  closely  related  to  the  thins;    ^ 

•'  ^  ^  °     Sources  of 

itself  but  which  are  not  immediately  obvious,  metaphor. 
Similarly  in  philosophy  it  is  a  mark  of  sagacity  ^' 
to  discern  resemblances  even  in  things  which  are  widely 
different,  as  when  Archytas  said  that  an  arbitrator  and 
an  altar  were  identical;  for  both  are  refuges  of  the  injured; 
or  if  one  should  say  that  an  anchor  and  a  hook  were 
identical;  for  they  are  both  the  same  kind  of  thing,  only 
they  differ  in  position,  f  one  being  above  and  the  other 
below.  The  J  equalization  of  states  in  regard  to  things  very 
dissimilar,  as  e.g.  equality  in  area  and  in  prerogatives,  would 
be  another  case. 

While  metaphor  is  a  very  frequent  instrument  of  clever 
sayings,  another  or  an  additional  instrument  is  deception, 
as  people  are  more  clearly  conscious  of  having  learnt  some- 

*  It  is  certainly  noticeable  that  Aristotle  understands  Homer's  dvatS^s 
as  an  epithet  of  a  stone  to  mean  literally  "shameless." 

t  The  meaning  is  that  an  anchor  holds  fast  something  which  is  above  it, 
and  a  hook  something  which  is  below  it. 

t  The  cleverness  or  originality  lies,  I  think,  in  the  comparison  of  things  so 
different  as  superficial  area  and  political  privilege  (or  perhaps  military 
strength). 


88  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

thing  from  their  sense  of  surprise  at  the  ivay  in  which  tht 
sentence    ends,    and    their    soul    seems     to    say, 

Deception 

(Trapa  "  Quitc    truc,   and    I    had    missed    the    point," 

irpoa&OKiav).  »  •  i  i  •       •  r        i  i      i 

Agam,  the  characteristic  oi  clever  apophthegms 
is  that  the  speaker  means  something  more  than  he  says, 
as  e.g.  the  apophthegm  of  Stesichorus  that  the  cicalas 
will  have  to  sing  to  themselves  on  the  ground.  This 
too  is  the  reason  of  the  pleasure  afforded  by  clever  riddles; 
they  are  instructive  and  metaphorical  in  their  expression. 
And  the  same  is  true  of  whatTheodorus  calls  "novel phrases," 
i.e.  phrases  in  which  the  sequel  is  unexpected  and  not,  as 
he  expresses  it,  ''  according  to  previous  expectation,"  but 
such  as  comic  writers  use  when  they  alter  the  forms  of  words. 
The  effect  of  jokes  depending  upon  changes  of  letters  is  the 
same;  they  deceive  the  expectation.  Nor  are  these  jokes 
found  only  in  prose,  they  occur  also  in  verses,  where  the  conclu- 
sion is  not  such  as  the  audience  had  expected,  e.g. 

And  as  he  walked,  beneath  his  feet 
Were  —  chilblains, 

whereas  the  audience  expected  the  writer  to  say  "  sandals." 
But  in  all  such  cases  the  point  must  be  clear  at  the  moment 
of  making  a  joke.  A  play  upon  the  letters  of  a  word  arises 
not  from  using  it  in  its  direct  meaning  but  from  giving  the 
meaning  a  new  turn.* 

A  proper  enunciation  is  requisite  in  all  such  sayings.    Take 

*  Aristotle  illustrates  the  "literal  joke"  by  two  expressions  which  would 
be  untranslatable,  even  if  it  were  possible  to  be  sure  of  their  meaning. 
The  first  of  them  (for  the  o"e  of  1.  t,t,  should  be  omitted)  may  apparently 
be  pronounced  either  as  Opdrrei  "  it  confounds  you"  or  as  Qparr  el 
"you  are  a  Thracian  slave  girl."  "This  is  amusing  (he  says)  when  its  point 
is  understood,  for  if  you  do  not  know  the  person  to  be  a  Thracian,  it  will  seem 
silly."  The  second,  (io6\ei  avrhv  iripaai,  has  never  been  explained.  "Both 
(he  adds)  need  a  proper  enunciation." 


ornaments 
of  style. 


ARISTOTLE  89 

e.g.  the  remark  that  Athens  did  not  find  the  *nilc  of  the  sea 
a  rule  of  misery,  as  it  was  a  source  of   profit 

•  111        Clever  say- 

to  her,  or  as  "f  Isocratcs  put  it,  that  the  rule  ingg  as 
of  the  sea  was  a  rule  of  misery  to  the  state. 
For  in  both  these  cases  there  is  something  said 
which  one  would  not  have  expected  to  be  said,  and  yet  it  is 
recognized  as  true;  for  there  is  no  cleverness  in  calling  the 
rule  a  rule  in  the  second  example,  but  the  word  "  rule  "  is 
employed  in  different  senses,  and  in  the  jirst  example  it  is 
not  "  rule"  in  the  sense  in  which  it  has  been  used  before,  but 
"  rule  "  in  a  different  sense  which  is  contradicted.  But  in  all 
these  cases  the  merit  consists  in  the  proper  application  of  the 
term  employed,  i.e.  in  the  appropriateness  of  it  to  the  thing 
described,  whether  it  is  employed  in  a  douhle-entendre  or  in  a 
metaphor.  Such  an  expression  e.g.  as  "Mr.  J  Bearable  un- 
bearable "  is  a  contradiction  only  of  the  double-entendre ; 
but  it  is  appropriate  enough,  if  the  person  in  question  is  a 
bore.     So  too  the  line 

§  "You  should  not  be  more  stranger  than  a  stranger," 

or  in  other  words,  not  stranger  than  you  are  bound  to  be, 
which  is  the  same  thing.  Or  again,  "  A  stranger  must  not 
always  be  a  stranger  ";  for  here  too  there  is  change  of  sig- 
nification. The  same  is  the  case  in  the  much  lauded  line  of 
Anaxandrides 

"  'Tis  well  to  die  ere  meriting  the  death  "; 

*  iipx''!  has  the  meaning  first  of  "empire"  and  then  of  "beginning"  in 
this  expression. 

t  The  passage  which  Aristotle  has  in  mind  is  apparently  either  Phil.  §  69, 
or  de  Pace,  §  125. 

X  Plainly  'Aj/do-xeroj  is  a  proper  name,  which  lends  itself  to  a  play  upon 
its  meaning. 

§  Vahlen's  reading  of  the  line  : 

ovK  hv  yivoio  fidXKov  •^  ^evos  ^^wj, 
gives  the  best  sense  and  is  supported  by  the  context. 


90  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

for  this  is  equivalent  to  saying,  "  'Tis  a  worthy  thing  to  die 
unworthily  "  or  *  "  to  die  not  being  worthy  of  death  " 
or  "  doing  nothing  worthy  of  death."  The  species  of  style 
is  the  same  in  all  these  instances;  but  the  more  concisely 
and  antithetically  it  is  expressed,  the  more  popular  is  the 
saying.  The  reason  of  this  is  that  its  instructiveness  is 
enhanced  by  the  antithesis  and  accelerated  by  the  conciseness 
of  its  terms.  But  there  should  always  be  the  additional  ele- 
ment of  some  personal  appositeness  or  propriety  of  expres- 
sion, if  what  is  said  is  to  be  true  and  not  superlicial.  For 
truth  and  depth  are  not  always  combined,  as  e.g.  in  the 
phrases  "  One  should  die  void  of  offence  "  or  "  A  worthy  man 
should  wed  a  worthy  wife,"  where  there  is  no  point  at  all.  It 
is  only  when  you  combine  the  two  that  you  make  a  pointed 
phrase,  e.g.  "  It  is  a  worthy  thing  to  die  unworthily."  But  the 
greater  the  number  of  such  elements  in  a  sentence,  the  more 
cleverly  pointed  it  appears,  as  e.g.  if  its  words  convey  a 
metaphor,  and  a  metaphor  of  a  particular  kind,  i.e.  a  pro- 
portional fnetaphor,  an  antithesis,  a  parisosis  or  balance  of 
clauses  and  a  vividness  of  action. 

Successful  similes  too,  as  has  been  said  above,  are  always 
in  a  certain  sense  popular  metaphors,  being  invariably  com- 
posed of  two  terms,  like  the  proportional  meta- 
Simiies.  phor.      For    instance,    the  shield,  as  we  say,  is 

Arcs's  goblet,  and  a  bow  a  stringless  lyre.  Such 
a  form  of  expression  is  not  a  f  simple  one;  but  to  call  the 
bow  a  lyre  or  the  shield  a  goblet  is  so. 

A  simile  is  formed  e.g.  by  the  comparison  of  a  flute  player 
to  a  monkey  or  of  a  %  shortsighted  person  to  a  lamp  with 

*  The  clause  is  probably  spurious. 

t  It  is  "not  simple"  because  e.g.  the  comparison  is  not  merely  between 
shield  and  goblet  but  between  the  shield  and  Arcs  on  the  one  hand  and  Dio- 
nysus and  the  goblet  on  the  other.  %  Omitting  eis. 


ARISTOTLE  9 1 

water  dripping  upon  it,  as  both  *  keep  shrinking.  A  success- 
ful simile  is  one  which  is  virtually  a  metaphor.  For  we  may 
compare  the  shield  to  "  Ares's  goblet  "  or  the  ruin  to  a  "  tatter 
of  a  house  "  ;  or  we  may  describe  f  Niceratus  as  a  "  Phil- 
octetes  stung  by  Pratys,"  using  the  simile  of  Thrasymachus 
when  he  saw  Niceratus  after  his  defeat  by  Pratys  in  the 
rhapsody  with  his  hair  still  dishevelled  and  his  face  unwashed. 
It  is  here  that  poets  arc  most  loudly  condemned  for  failure 
and  most  warmly  applauded  for  success,  when  they  so  jorm 
their  simile  that  the  two  members  of  it  correspond,  as  e.g. 

"  Like  parsley  curied  his  legs  he  bears  " 
or 

"  Just  as  t  Philammon  tilting  at  the  quintain." 

These  expressions  and  all  others  like  them  are  similes;  and 
that  similes  are  metaphors  is  a  truth  which  has  been  already 
stated  more  than  once. 

Proverbs  again  are  metaphors  from  one  species  to  another, 
e.g.  when  somebody  has  invited  a  person's  help 

^  ■'  ,    ,  r  1       Proverbs. 

in  the  hope  of  gaining  by  it  and  has  afterwards 

found  it  to  be  a  source  of  injury,   §  "  'Tis  as  the  Carpathian 

says  of  the  hare  ";  for  they  are  both  the  victims  of  this  fate. 

The  sources  of  clever  sayings  and  the  reasons  of  their 
cleverness  have  now  been  pretty  fully  discussed. 

All  approved  hyperboles  are  also  metaphors,  as  when  it  is 
said  of  a  man  whose  face  is  bruised,  "  You  might 

Hyperboles. 

have  taken  him  for  a  basket  of  mulberries."     For 

a  bruise  like  a  mulberry  is  something  purple;  but  it  is  the 

*  The  winking  of  the  shortsighted  person  and  the  sputtering  of  the  lamp 
are  both  describable  by  the  verb  <rvvdyfa-dai. 

t  Niceratus  seems  to  have  engaged  in  a  rhapsodical  contest  with  Pratys. 

X  Philammon  was  a  celebrated  athlete. 

§  It  is  supposed  that  some  Carpathian  had  brought  some  hares  or  rabbits 
into  his  island  and  that  they  had  multiplied  and  devoured  all  his  crops. 


92  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   I .Y  LITERATURE 

number  of  the  bruises  supposed  which  makes  the  hyberbole. 
But  there  are  other  phrases  rcsembhng  those  given  above 
which  are  hyperboles  with  only  a  difference  of  expression, 
as  if  you  change 

"  Just  as  Philammon  tilting  at  the  quintain  " 

to  "  You  would  have  tliought  he  was  Philammon  fighting 
with  the  quintain  "  or 

"Like  parsley  curled  his  legs  he  bears" 

to  "  You  might  have  thought  he  had  not  legs  but  parsley; 
they  were  so  curly." 

There  is  a  character  of  juvenility  in  hyperboles  as  showing 
vehemence.  Hence  people  generally  employ  them  in  mo- 
ments of  passion,  as  in  the  *  lines 

"  Not  tho'  he  gave  me  gifts 
As  many  as  tlie  sand-grains  or  the  dust." 


"  But  Agamemnon's  daughter  wed  I  not, 
Tho'  Aphrodite's  beauty  were  her  own 
And  all  Athene's  art." 

This  is  a  favorite  figure  of    the    Attic    orators.     But,  as 
being  juvenile,  it  is  unbecoming  to  elder  people. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten   that  every  kind  of  Rhetoric 
has    its    own    appropriate  style.     For  there  is  a  difference 

between  the  literary  and  controversial  styles  and 
Propriety        ^^    ^^'^    Controversial    style   between   the   political 

and  forensic  styles.  But  the  orator  should  be 
familiar  w^ith  both;  for  the  one  (the  controversial  style) 
implies  a  power  of  expressing  oneself  in  pure  and  accurate 
Greek,  and  the  other  (the  literary  style)  a  deliverance  from 

*  Iliad,  ix.  385  sqq. 


ARISTOTLE  93 

the  necessity  of  holding  one's  tongue,  if  one  has  anything 
that  he  wishes  to  impart  to  the  world,  as  is  the  case  of  those 
who  have  no  skill  in  composition. 

It  is  the  literary  style  which  is  the  most  finished  and  the 
controversial  which  is  the  best  suited  to  declamation.  Con- 
troversial oratory  ao;ain  is  of  two  kinds,  ethical   ,  ■.  1 

•'       "  '  i^iterary  and 

and  emotional.  This  is  the  reason  why  actors  controversial 
are  fond  of  such  dramas  and  poets  of  such  ^^^^' 
dramatis  persona  as  lend  themselves  to  the  treatment  of 
character  or  emotion.  But  it  is  poets  who  write  to  be 
read  whose  works  are  in  everybody's  hands,  such  as 
Chaeremon  who  is  as  finished  as  a  *  professional  speech- 
writer  and  Licymnius  among  the  dithyrambic  poets.  Also 
a  comparison  of  the  speeches  of  literary  men  and  those  of 
rhetoricians  shows  that  the  former  are  found  in  actual  con- 
tests to  be  meagre,  and  the  latter,  although  highly  com- 
mended, to  be  inartistic,  when  taken  in  the  hands  and  closely 
studied.  The  reason  is  that  they  are  adapted  to  an  actual 
contest;  hence  the  speeches  which  are  intended  to  be  de- 
claimed, when  the  declamation  is  removed,  appear  ridiculous, 
as  failing  to  discharge  their  proper  function.  Thus  the  use 
of  asyndeta  and  the  frequent  repetition  of  the  same  word  are 
rightly  reprobated  in  the  literary  style,  but  are  actually 
sought  by  orators  in  the  controversial  style  for  their  dramatic 
effect,  f  (But  in  such  repetitions  there  must  be  some  variety 
oj  expression,  which  paves  the  way,  if  I  may  so  speak,  for  dec- 
lamation, as  e.g.  in  the  words  "  Here  is  he  who  robbed  you; 

*  The  term  Xo7o7pd0os  is  fully  discussed  by  Mr.  Cope  in  his  note  on 
ii.  ch.  1 1,  §  7.  It  means  here  not  so  much  one  who  composed  speeches  to  be 
delivered  by  others  in  a  Court  of  Law  as  one  who  wrote  panegyrical  or  epideic- 
tic  speeches,  meaning  them  not  to  be  delivered  at  all  but  to  be  read  and  studied 
at  home. 

t  The  sentences  placed  in  brackets  contain  remarks  which  are  rather  inci- 
dental than  necessary  to  the  subiect  of  the  chapter. 


94  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

here  is  he  who  cheated  you;  here  is  he  who  at  the  last  es- 
sayed to  betray  you."  We  may  instance  too  the  *  trick  of 
the  actor  Philemon  in  Anaxandrides's  play  The  Old  Man's 
Dotage  at  the  passa'^e  beginning  "  Rhadamanthys  and  Pal 
amedes,"  or  his  repetition  of  the  personal  pronoun  in  the  pro- 
logue of  the  Devotees;  for  unless  such  passages  are  dramatic- 
ally declaimed,  the  case  is  like  that  of  f  a  man  who  has 
swallowed  a  poker.  And  the  same  is  true  of  asyndcta,  e.g. 
"  I  came,  I  met,  I  implored  ";  it  is  necessary  to  declaim  the 
words  dramatically  and  not  to  utter  them,  as  if  they  were 
all  one  thing,  with  the  same  character  and  intonation.  There 
is  this  especial  property  also  in  asyndeta,  that  they  make  it 
possible  to  present  an  appearance  of  saying  several  things  in 
the  time  which  would  otherwise  be  required  for  saying  one. 
For  the  effect  of  the  connecting  particle  is  to  convert  several 
things  into  one;  hence,  if  the  connecting  particle  is  taken 
away,  the  consequence  will  clearly  be  the  opposite  effect  of 
converting  a  single  thing  into  several.  The  asyndeton  is 
thus  a  means  of  amplification.  Take  for  instance  the  words 
"I  came,  I  conversed,  I  entreated";  the  audience  seems 
to  survey  several  things,  as  many  things  in  fact  as  the  speaker 
mentioned.  And  this  is  Homer's  purpose  in  the  reiteration 
oj  the  name  Nireus  in  the  successive  J  lines 

"  Nireus  of  Syme, 
"  Nireus  Aglaia's  son, 
"  Nireus  the  fairest  man," 

for  as  a  person  of  whom  several  things  are  said  will  necessarily 

*  The  allusion  is  admittedly  obscure ;  but  it  seems  most  probable  that 
these  were  well-known  passages  in  which  the  art  of  the  actor  Philemon  had 
emphasized  slight  varieties  of  expression,  where  several  similar  clauses 
occurred  together. 

t  "  The  porter  who  carried  the  beam"  was  a  typical  Greek  instance  of  stiff- 
ness like  "the  man  who  has  swallowed  a  poker"  in  English. 

X  Iliad,  ii.  671-673. 


ARISTOTLE  95 

be  mentioned  several  times,  it  follows  that,  if  a  person  is 
mentioned  several  times,  it  seems  as  if  several  things  had 
been  said  of  him.  So  that  Homer  by  a  single  mention  of 
Nireus  exaggerated  his  importance  through  this  fallacy 
and  makes  him  famous,  although  he  never  alludes  to  him 
again.) 

The  style  of  political  oratory  is  precisely  similar  to  scene- 
painting.     For  the  greater  the  crowd,  the  more  distant  is  the 
view:    hence  it  is  that  in  both  a  finished  style 
appears  superfluous  and  unsuccessful.  The  forensic   rhetoric 
style  on  the  other  hand  is  more  finished,  especially 
when  addressed  to  a  single  judge;   for  he  is  least  subject 
to    rhetorical    influences,    as   he    can    take    a    more    com- 
prehensive view  of  what  is  germane  to  the  case  or  alien  to 
it  and,  as  there  is  no  actual  contest,  is  not  prejudiced  in 
his  judgment.     Accordingly  it  is  not  the  same  orators  who 
succeed  in  all  the  different  styles  of  Rhetoric;    but,  where 
there  is  most  opportunity  for  declamation,  there  is  the  least 
possibility  of  finish.     And  this  is  the  case  where  voice,  and 
especially  where  a  loud  voice,  is  required. 

The  epideictic  style  is  best  suited  to  literary  purposes,  as 
its  proper  function  is  to  be  read ;  and  next  to  it  the  forensic 
style.  It  is  superfluous  to  add  such  distinctions  ^  j^jeictic 
as  that  the  style  should  be  pleasant  and  stately;  and  forensic 
we  might  as  well  say  that  it  must  be  chastened 
and  liberal  and  characterized  by  any  other  ethical  virtue. 
For  it  is  clear  that  the  *  quahties  enumerated  above  will 
render  it  pleasant,  if  we  have  been  right  in  our  definition 
of  virtue  of  style.  What  other  reason  is  there  why  it  should 
be  clear  and  hot  commonplace  but  appropriate  ?  For  it 
will  not  be  clear,  if  it  is  proHx  or  too  concise.     But  it  is 

*  Purity,  propriety,  vividness,  rhythm,  and  the  like,  as  Mr.  Cope  justly 
says. 


96  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

evident  that  it  is  the  intermediate  style  which  is  the 
appropriate  one.  Pleasantness  will  result  from  the  elements 
above  enumerated,  if  successfully  combined,  viz.  familiar 
and  foreign  words,  rhythm,  and  the  persuasiveness  which 
is  the  outcome  of  propriety. 

We  have  now  concluded  our  remarks  upon  style  whether 
as  belonging  equally  to  all  kinds  of  Rhetoric  or  as  peculiar 
to  the  several  kinds;    it  remains  to  consider  arrangement. 

'  Compare  Voltaire,  below,  p.  184. 

^  Compare  Pater,  below,  pp.  387  ff. 

^  Compare  Wackernagel,  above,  p.  3. 

*  Compare  Buffon,  below,  p.  176,  and  Brunetiere,  below,  p.  424. 

'  Compare  Buffon,  below,  pp.  170-171. 


LONGINUS  97 

IV 

LONGINUS 

On  the  Sublime  (First  Century  a.d.) 

[From  Longiniis  On  the  Sublime,  translated  into  English  by  H.  L.  Ha  veil, 
with  an  Introduction  by  Andrew  Lang  (London  and  New  York,  Macmillan, 
1890,  pp.  1-86). 

We  give  Mr.  Ha  veil's  translation  entire,  with  his  foot-notes ; 
for  lack  of  space  other  annotation  must  be  restricted.  By- 
far  the  best  commentary  on  Longinus  is  to  be  found  in  the 
admirable  edition  of  the  treatise  On  the  Sublime  by  Professor 
W.  Rhys  Roberts  (Cambridge  University  Press,  1899). 
Students  of  English  are  referred  particularly  to  Professor 
Roberts's  remarks  on  the  "  Contents  and  Character  of  the 
Treatise  "  (pp.  23-37).  It  is  to  be  regretted  that  his  trans- 
lation is  not  accessible  in  separate  and  cheaper  form.  Mr, 
A.  O.  Prickard's  excellent  version  (Oxford,  Clarendon  Press, 
1906)  is  accompanied  by  a  valuable  Introduction. 

This  celebrated  and  inspiring  epistle,  long  attributed 
mistakenly  to  an  author  of  the  third  century  a.d.,  but  in  all 
likelihood  by  an  unidentified  writer  of  the  first,  may  be  not 
improperly  described  as  an  essay  on  style  —  "  the  grand 
style,"  as  Matthew  Arnold  would  say.  Although  it  con- 
tinues the  tradition  of  earlier  works  on  rhetoric,  rather  than 
poetics,  it  has  a  bearing  on  both  subjects.  It  might  not, 
in  fact,  wholly  escape  Wackernagel's  censure  of  theories  that 
fail  to  differentiate  carefully  between  style  in  prose  and  style 
in  verse  (cf.  above,  pp.  3-4).  The  student  would  derive  bene- 
fit in  trying  either  to  defend  or  to  convict  the  treatise  on  this 
charge.] 

I 

The  treatise  of  Caecilius  on  the  Sublime,  when,  as  you  re- 
member, my  dearTerentian,  we  examined  it  together,  seemed 
to  us  to  be  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  whole  subject,  to  fail 
entirely  in  seizing  the  salient  points,  and  to  offer  httle  profit 


98  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

(which  should  be  the  principal  aim  of  every  writer)  for  the 
trouble  of  its  perusal.  There  are  two  things  essential  to  a 
technical  treatise:  the  first  is  to  define  the  subject;  the 
second  (I  mean  second  in  order,  as  it  is  by  much  the  first  in 
importance)  to  point  out  how  and  by  what  methods  we  may 
become  masters  of  it  ourselves.  And  yet  Caecihus,  while 
wasting  his  efforts  in  a  thousand  illustrations  of  the  nature  of 
the  Subhme,  as  though  here  we  were  quite  in  the  dark,  some- 
how passes  by  as  immaterial  the  question  how  we  might  be 
able  to  exalt  our  own  genius  to  a  certain  degree  of  progress 
in  sublimity.  However,  perhaps  it  would  be  fairer  to  com- 
mend this  writer's  intelligence  and  zeal  in  themselves,  in- 
stead of  blaming  him  for  his  omissions.  And  since  you 
have  bidden  me  also  to  put  together,  if  only  for  your  enter- 
tainment, a  few  notes  on  the  subject  of  the  Subhme,  let  me 
see  if  there  is  anything  in  my  speculations  which  promises 
advantage  to  men  of  affairs.  In  you,  dear  friend  —  such  is 
my  confidence  in  your  abihties,  and  such  the  part  which 
becomes  you  —  I  look  for  a  sympathizing  and  discerning  * 
critic  of  the  several  parts  of  my  treatise.  For  that  was  a  just 
remark  of  his  who  pronounced  that  the  points  in  which  we 
resemble  the  divine  nature  are  benevolence  and  love  of  truth. 
As  I  am  addressing  a  person  so  accomplished  in  literature, 
I  need  only  state,  without  enlarging  further  on  the  matter, 
that  the  Sublime,  wherever  it  occurs,  consists  in  a  certain 
loftiness  and  excellence  of  language,  and  that  it  is  by  this, 
and  this  only,  that  the  greatest  poets  and  prose-writers  have 
gained  eminence,  and  won  themselves  a  lasting  place  in  the 
Temple  of  Fame.  A  lofty  passage  does  not  convince  the 
reason  of  the  reader,  but  takes  him  out  of  himself.  That 
which  is  admirable  ever  confounds  our  judgment,  and  echpses 
that  which  is  merely  reasonable  or  agreeable.    To  beheve  or 

*  Reading  ^tXo^^ov^iTTaTa  K.a.1  k\i\di<jTa.TQ., 


LONG  IN  us  99 

not  is  usually  in  our  own  power;  but  the  Sublime,  acting  with 
an  imperious  and  irresistible  force,  sways  every  reader  whether 
he  will  or  no.  Skill  in  invention,  lucid  arrangement  and 
disposition  of  facts,  are  appreciated  not  by  one  passage,  or  by 
two,  but  gradually  manifest  themselves  in  the  general  struc- 
ture of  a  work;  but  a  sublime  thought,  if  happily  timed, 
illumines  *  an  entire  subject  with  the  vividness  of  a  lightning- 
flash,  and  exhibits  the  whole  power  of  the  orator  in  a  moment 
of  time.  Your  own  experience,  I  am  sure,  my  dearest  Ter- 
entian,  would  enable  you  to  illustrate  these  and  similar 
points  of  doctrine. 

n 

The  first  question  which  presents  itself  for  solution  is 
whether  there  is  any  art  which  can  teach  sublimity  or  loftiness 
in  writing.  For  some  hold  generally  that  there  is  mere 
delusion  in  attempting  to  reduce  such  subjects  to  technical 
rules.  "The  Sublime,"  they  tell  us,  "  is  born  in  a  man,  and 
not  to  be  acquired  by  instruction;  genius  is  the  only  master 
who  can  teach  it.  The  vigorous  products  of  nature  "  (such 
is  their  view)  "  are  weakened  and  in  every  respect  debased, 
when  robbed  of  their  flesh  and  blood  by  frigid  technicalities." 
But  I  maintain  that  the  truth  can  be  shown  to  stand  other- 
wise in  this  matter.  Let  us  look  at  the  case  in  this  way; 
Nature  in  her  loftier  and  more  passionate  moods,  while  de- 
testing all  appearance  of  restraint,  is  not  wont  to  show  herself 
utterly  wayward  and  reckless;  and  though  in  all  cases  the 
vital  informing  principle  is  derived  from  her,  yet  to  determine 
the  right  degree  and  the  right  moment,  and  to  contribute 
the  precision  of  practice  and  experience,  is  the  peculiar  prov- 
ince of  scientific  method.  The  great  passions,  when  left 
to  their  own  blind  and  rash  impulses  without  the  control 

*  Reading  diecpJiri.crei'. 


100  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  reason,  are  in  the  same  danger  as  a  ship  let  drive  at  ran- 
dom without  ballast.  Often  they  need  the  spur,  but  some- 
times also  the  curl).  The  remark  of  Demosthenes  with 
regard  to  human  life  in  general,  —  that  the  greatest  of  all 
blessings  is  to  be  fortunate,  but  next  to  that  and  equal  in 
importance  is  to  be  well  advised,  —  for  good  fortune  is 
utterly  ruined  by  the  absence  of  good  counsel,  —  may  be 
applied  to  literature,  if  we  substitute  genius  for  fortune,  and 
art  for  counsel.  Then,  again  (and  this  is  the  most  important 
point  of  all),  a  writer  can  only  learn  from  art  when  he  is  to 
abandon  himself  to  the  direction  of  his  genius.* 

These  are  the  considerations  which  I  submit  to  the  unfa- 
vorable critic  of  such  useful  studies.  Perhaps  they  may 
induce  him  to  alter  his  opinion  as  to  the  vanity  and  idleness 
of  our  present  investigations. 

in 

..."  And  let  them  check  the  stove's  long  tongues  of  fire : 

For  if  I  see  one  tenant  of  the  hearth, 

I'll  thrust  within  one  curling  torrent  flame, 

And  bring  that  roof  in  ashes  to  the  ground : 

But  now  not  yet  is  sung  my  noble  lay."  t 

Such  phrases  cease  to  be  tragic,  and  become  burlesque,  — 
I  mean  phrases  like  "  curhng  torrent  flames  "  and  "  vomiting 
to  heaven,"  and  representing  Boreas  as  a  piper,  and  so  on. 
Such  expressions,  and  such  images,  produce  an  eft'ect  of 
confusion  and  obscurity,  not  of  energy;  and  if  each  separately 
be  examined  under  the  light  of  criticism,  what  seemed  ter- 
rible gradually  sinks  into  absurdity.     Since  then,  even  in 

*  Literally,  "  Hut  the  most  important  point  of  all  is  Ihat  the  actual  fart 
that  there  are  some  parts  of  literature  which  are  in  the  power  of  natural  genius 
alone,  must  be  learnt  from  no  other  source  than  from  art." 

t  i^schylus  in  his  lost  Orithyia. 


LOXG/NUS  lOI 

tragedy,  where  the  natural  dignity  of  the  subject  makes  a 
sweUing  diction  allowable,  we  cannot  pardon  a  tasteless 
grandiloquence,  how  much  more  incongruous  must  it  seem 
in  sober  prose  !  Hence  we  laugh  at  those  fine  words  of 
Gorgias  of  Leontini,  such  as  "  Xerxes  the  Persian  Zeus  " 
and  "  vultures,  those  living  tombs,"  and  at  certain  conceits 
of  Callisthenes  which  are  high-flown  rather  than  sublime, 
and  at  some  in  Cleitarchus  more  ludicrous  still  —  a  writer 
whose  frothy  style  tempts  us  to  travesty  Sophocles  and  say, 
"  He  blows  a  httle  pipe,  and  blows  it  ill."  The  same  faults 
may  be  observed  in  Amphicrates  and  Hegesias  and  Matris, 
who  in  their  frequent  moments  (as  they  think)  of  inspiration, 
instead  of  playing  the  genius  are  simply  playing  the  fool. 

Speaking  generally,  it  would  seem  that  bombast  is  one 
of  the  hardest  things  to  avoid  in  writing.  For  all  those 
writers  who  are  ambitious  of  a  lofty  style,  through  dread  of 
being  convicted  of  feebleness  and  poverty  of  language,  shde 
by  a  natural  gradation  into  the  opposite  extreme.  "  Who 
fails  in  great  endeavor,  nobly  fails,"  is  their  creed.  Now  bulk, 
when  hollow  and  affected,  is  always  objectionable,  whether 
in  material  bodies  or  in  writings,  and  in  danger  of  producing 
on  us  an  impression  of  littleness:  "  nothing,"  it  is  said,  "  is 
drier  than  a  man  with  the  dropsy." 

The  characteristic,  then,  of  bombast  is  that  it  transcends 
the  Sublime :  but  there  is  another  fault  diametrically  opposed 
to  grandeur:  this  is  called  puerility,  and  it  is  the  failing  of 
feeble  and  narrow  minds,  —  indeed,  the  most  ignoble  of  all 
vices  in  writing.  By  puerility  we  mean  a  pedantic  habit  of 
mind,  which  by  over-elaboration  ends  in  frigidity.  Slips 
of  this  sort  are  made  by  those  who,  aiming  at  brilliancy, 
polish,  and  especially  attractiveness,  are  landed  in  paltriness 
and  silly  affectation.  Closely  associated  with  this  is  a  third 
sort  of  vice,  in  dealing  with  the  passions,  which  Theodorus 

LIGRAHY 

STAT^  TE/'C^ER  S  C    L   FPE 
SA    TA   PAKB,,fiA    Pai  It:    asi\k 


I02  THEORIES   OE  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

used  to  call  false  sentiment,  meaning  by  that  an  ill-timed  and 
empty  display  of  emotion,  where  no  emotion  is  called  for, 
or  of  greater  emotion  than  the  situation  warrants.  Thus 
we  often  see  an  author  hurried  by  the  tumult  of  his  mind 
into  tedious  displays  of  mere  personal  feeling  which  has  no 
connection  with  the  subject.  Yet  how  justly  ridiculous 
must  an  author  appear,  whose  most  violent  transports  leave 
his  readers  quite  cold  !  However,  I  will  dismiss  this  subject, 
as  I  intend  to  devote  a  separate  work  to  the  treatment  of  the 
pathetic  in  writing. 

rv 

The  last  of  the  faults  which  I  mentioned  is  frequently  ob- 
served in  Timseus  —  I  mean  the  fault  of  frigidity.  In  other 
respects  he  is  an  able  writer,  and  sometimes  not  unsuccessful 
in  the  loftier  style;  a  man  of  wide  knowledge,  and  full  of 
ingenuity;  a  most  bitter  critic  of  the  failings  of  others  — 
but  unhappily  blind  to  his  own.  In  his  eagerness  to  be  always 
striking  out  new  thoughts  he  frequently  falls  into  the  most 
childish  absurdities.  I  will  only  instance  one  or  two  passages, 
as  most  of  them  have  been  pointed  out  by  Cascilius.  Wishing 
to  say  something  very  fine  about  Alexander  the  Great  he 
speaks  of  him  as  a  man  "  who  annexed  the  whole  of  Asia 
in  fewer  years  than  Isocrates  spent  in  writing  his  panegyric 
oration  in  which  he  urges  the  Greeks  to  make  war  on  Persia." 
How  strange  is  the  comparison  of  the  "  great  Emathian  con- 
queror "  with  an  Athenian  rhetorician  !  By  this  mode  of 
reasoning  it  is  plain  that  the  Spartans  were  very  inferior  to 
Isocrates  in  courage,  since  it  took  them  thirty  years  to  conquer 
Messene,  while  he  finished  the  composition  of  this  harangue 
in  ten.  Observe,  too,  his  language  on  the  Athenians  taken 
in  Sicily.  "They  paid  the  penalty  for  their  impious  outrage 
on  Hermes  in  mutilating  his  statues;   and  the  chief  agent  in 


LONG  IN  us  103 

their  destruction  was  one  who  was  descended  on  his  father's 
side  from  the  injured  deity  —  Hermocrates,  son  of  Hermon." 
I  wonder,  my  dearest  Terentian,  how  he  omitted  to  say 
of  the  tyrant  Dionysius  that  for  his  impiety  towards  Zeus 
and  Herakles  he  was  deprived  of  his  power  by  Dion  and 
Herakleides.  Yet  why  speak  of  Timasus,  when  even  men 
like  Xenophon  and  Plato  —  the  very  demigods  of  literature 
—  though  they  had  sat  at  the  feet  of  Socrates,  sometimes 
forgot  themselves  in  the  pursuit  of  such  paltry  conceits. 
The  former,  in  his  account  of  the  Spartan  Polity,  has  these 
words:  "Their  voice  you  would  no  more  hear  than  if  they 
were  of  marble,  their  gaze  is  as  immovable  as  if  they  were  cast 
in  bronze;  you  would  deem  them  more  modest  than  the  very 
maidens  in  their  eyes."*  To  speak  of  the  pupils  of  the  eye 
as  "  modest  maidens  "  was  a  piece  of  absurdity  becoming 
Amphicrates  |  rather  than  Xenophon.  And  then  what  a 
strange  delusion  to  suppose  that  modesty  is  always  without 
exception  expressed  in  the  eye  !  whereas  it  is  commonly  said 
that  there  is  nothing  by  which  an  impudent  fellow  betrays 
his  character  so  much  as  by  the  expression  of  his  eyes.  Thus 
A^chilles  addresses  Agamemnon  in  the  Iliad  as  "  drunkard, 
with  eye  of  dog."  |  Timasus,  however,  with  that  want  of 
judgment  which  characterizes  plagiarists,  could  not  leave 
to  Xenophon  the  possession  of  even  this  piece  of  frigidity. 
In  relating  how  Agathocles  carried  off  his  cousin,  who  was 
wedded  to  another  man,  from  the  festival  of  the  unveihng, 
he  asks,  "  Who  could  have  done  such  a  deed,  unless  he  had 
harlots  instead  of  maidens  in  his  eyes?"  And  Plato  himself, 
elsewhere  so  supreme  a  master  of  style,  meaning  to  describe 
certain  recording  tablets,  says,  "They  shall  write,  and  de- 
posit in  the  temples  memorials  of  cypress  wood";§   and 

*  Xen.  de  Rep.  Laced.  3,  5.  J  //.  i.  225. 

t  C.  iii.  section  2.  §  Plat,  de  Legg.  v.  741,  C. 


I04  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

again,  "Then  concerning  walls, Megillus,  I  give  my  vote  with 
Sparta  that  we  should  let  them  he  asleep  within  the  ground, 
and  not  awaken  them."  *  And  Herodotus  falls  pretty  much 
under  the  same  censure,  when  he  speaks  of  beautiful  women 
as  "  tortures  to  the  eye,"  \  though  here  there  is  some  excuse, 
as  the  speakers  in  this  passage  are  drunken  barbarians. 
Still,  even  from  dramatic  motives,  such  errors  in  taste  should 
not  be  permitted  to  deface  the  pages  of  an  immortal  work. 


Now  all  these  glaring  improprieties  of  language  may 
be  traced  to  one  common  root  —  the  pursuit  of  novelty  in 
thought.^  It  is  this  that  has  turned  the  brain  of  nearly  all 
the  learned  world  of  to-day.  Human  blessings  and  human 
ills  commonly  flow  from  the  same  source:  and,  to  apply 
this  principle  to  literature,  those  ornaments  of  style,  those 
subhme  and  delightful  images,  which  contribute  to  success, 
are  the  foundation  and  the  origin,  not  only  of  excellence, 
but  also  of  failure.  It  is  thus  with  the  figures  called  transi- 
tions, and  hyperboles,  and  the  use  of  plurals  for  singulars. 
I  shall  show  presently  the  dangers  which  they  seem  to  in- 
volve. Our  next  task,  therefore,  must  be  to  propose  and  to 
settle  the  question  how  we  may  avoid  the  faults  of  style  re- 
lated to  sublimity. 

VI 

Our  best  hope  of  doing  this  will  be  first  of  all  to  grasp  some 
definite  theory  and  criterion  of  the  true  Sublime.  Neverthe- 
less this  is  a  hard  matter;  for  a  just  judgment  of  style  is 
the  final  fruit  of  long  experience;  still,  I  believe  that  the  way 
I  shall  indicate  will  enable  us  to  distinguish  between  the 
true  and  false  Subhme,  so  far  as  it  can  be  done  by  rule. 
*  Ih.  vi.  778,  D.  t  V.  18, 


LONG  J  N  us  105 


VII 


It  is  proper  to  observe  that  in  human  h'fc  nothing  is  truly 
great  which  is  despised  by  all  elevated  minds.  For  example, 
no  man  of  sense  can  regard  wealth,  honor,  glory,  and  power, 
or  any  of  those  things  which  are  surrounded  by  a  great  ex- 
ternal parade  of  pomp  and  circumstance,  as  the  highest 
blessings,  seeing  that  merely  to  despise  such  things  is  a  bless- 
ing of  no  common  order:  certainly  those  wdio  possess  them 
are  admired  much  less  than  those  who,  having  the  oppor- 
tunity to  acquire  them,  through  greatness  of  soul  neglect 
it.  Now  let  us  apply  this  principle  to  the  Sublime  in  poetry 
or  in  prose;  let  us  ask  in  all  cases,  is  it  merely  a  specious 
sublimity?  is  this  gorgeous  exterior  a  mere  false  and  clumsy 
pageant,  which  if  laid  open  will  be  found  to  conceal  nothing 
but  emptiness?  for  if  so,  a  noble  mind  will  scorn  instead 
of  admiring  it.  It  is  natural  to  us  to  feel  our  souls  lifted 
up  by  the  true  Sublime,  and  conceiving  a  sort  of  generous 
exultation  to  be  filled  with  joy  and  pride,  as  though  we  had 
ourselves  originated  the  ideas  which  we  read.  If  then  any 
work,  on  being  repeatedly  submitted  to  the  judgment  of 
an  acute  and  cultivated  critic,  fails  to  dispose  his  mind  to 
lofty  ideas;  if  the  thoughts  which  it  suggests  do  not  extend 
beyond  what  is  actually  expressed;  and  if,  the  longer  you 
read  it,  the  less  you  think  of  it,  —  there  can  be  here  no  true 
subhmity,  when  the  effect  is  not  sustained  beyond  the  mere 
act  of  perusal.  But  when  a  passage  is  pregnant  in  sugges- 
tion, when  it  is  hard,  nay  impossible,  to  distract  the  attention 
from  it,  and  when  it  takes  a  strong  and  lasting  hold  on  the 
memory,  then  we  may  be  sure  that  we  have  lighted  on  the 
true  Sublime.  In  general  we  may  regard  those  words  as 
truly  noble  and  sublime  which  always  please  and  please  all 
readers.     For  when  the  same  book  always  produces  the 


I06  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

same  impression  on  all  who  read  it,  whatever  be  the  dif- 
ference in  their  pursuits,  their  manner  of  life,  their  aspira- 
tions, their  ages,  or  their  language,  such  a  harmony  of 
opposites  gives  irresistible  authority  to  their  favorable 
verdict. 

VIII 

I  shall  now  proceed  to  enumerate  the  five  principal 
sources,  as  we  may  call  them,  from  which  almost  all  sub- 
limity is  derived,  assuming,  of  course,  the  preliminary  gift 
on  which  all  these  five  sources  depend,  namely,  command 
of  language.  The  first  and  the  most  important  is  (i)  gran- 
deur of  thought,  as  I  have  pointed  out  elsewhere  in  my  work 
on  Xenophon.  The  second  is  (2)  a  vigorous  and  spirited 
treatment  of  the  passions.  These  two  conditions  of  subhmity 
depend  mainly  on  natural  endowments,  whereas  those  which 
follow  derive  assistance  from  Art.  The  third  is  (3)  a  certain 
artifice  in  the  employment  of  figures,  which  are  of  two  kinds, 
figures  of  thought  and  figures  of  speech.  The  fourth  is  (4) 
dignified  expression,  which  is  subdivided  into  (a)  the  proper 
choice  of  words,  and  Q))  the  use  of  metaphors  and  other 
ornaments  of  diction.  The  fifth  cause  of  sublimity,  which 
embraces  all  those  preceding,  is  (5)  majesty  and  elevation  of 
structure.  Let  us  consider  what  is  involved  in  each  of  these 
five  forms  separately. 

I  must  first,  however,  remark  that  some  of  these  five  divi- 
sions are  omitted  by  Caecilius;  for  instance,  he  says  nothing 
about  the  passions.  Now  if  he  made  this  omission  from 
a  belief  that  the  Sublime  and  the  Pathetic  are  one  and  the 
same  thing,  holding  them  to  be  always  coexistent  and  inter- 
dependent, he  is  in  error.  Some  jiassions  are  found  which, 
so  far  from  being  lofty,  are  actually  low,  such  as  pity,  grief, 
fear;    and  conversely,  sublimity  is  often  not  in  the  least  af- 


LONG  IN  us  107 

fecting,  as  we  may  see  (among  innumerable  other  instances) 
in  those  bold  expressions  of  our  great  poet  on  the  sons  of 
Aloeus  — 

"  Highly  they  raged 
To  pile  huge  Ossa  on  the  Olympian  peak, 
And  Pelion  with  all  his  waving  trees 
On  Ossa's  crest  to  raise,  and  climb  the  sky; " 

and  the  yet  more  tremendous  climax  — 

"  And  now  had  they  accomplished  it." 

And  in  orators,  in  all  passages  dealing  with  panegyric, 
and  in  all  the  more  imposing  and  declamatory  places, 
dignity  and  sublimity  play  an  indispensable  part;  but  pathos 
is  mostly  absent.  Hence  the  most  pathetic  orators  have 
usually  but  little  skill  in  panegyric,  and  conversely  those 
who  are  powerful  in  panegyric  generally  fail  in  pathos.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  Cascilius  supposed  that  pathos  never 
contributes  to  sublimity,  and  this  is  why  he  thought  it  alien 
to  the  subject,  he  is  entirely  deceived.  For  I  would  con- 
fidently pronounce  that  nothing  is  so  conducive  to  sublimity 
as  an  appropriate  display  of  genuine  passion,  which  bursts 
out  with  a  kind  of  "  fine  madness  "  and  divine  inspiration, 
and  falls  on  our  ears  like  the  voice  of  a  god. 

IX 

I  have  already  said  that  of  all  these  five  conditions  of  the 
Subhme  the  most  important  is  the  first,  that  is,  a  certain 
lofty  cast  of  mind.^  Therefore,  although  this  is  a  faculty 
rather  natural  than  acquired,  nevertheless  it  will  be  well 
for  us  in  this  instance  also  to  train  up  our  souls  to  sublimity, 
and  make  them  as  it  were  ever  big  with  noble  thoughts. 
How,  it  may  be  asked,  is  this  to  be  done  ?  I  have  hinted 
elsewhere  in  my  writings  that  sublimity  is,  so  to  say,  the  image 
of  greatness  of  soul.     Hence  a  thought  in  its  naked  sim- 


I08  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

plicity,  even  though  unuttcred,  is  sometimes  admirable 
by  the  sheer  force  of  its  subhmity;  for  instance,  the  silence 
of  Ajax  in  the  eleventh  Odyssey  *  is  great,  and  grander  than 
anything  he  could  have  said.  It  is  absolutely  essential, 
then,  first  of  all  to  settle  the  question  whence  this  grandeur 
of  conception  arises;  and  the  answer  is  that  true  eloquence 
can  be  found  only  in  those  whose  spirit  is  generous  and  as- 
piring. For  those  whose  whole  lives  are  wasted  in  paltry 
and  illiberal  thoughts  and  habits  cannot  possibly  produce 
any  work  worthy  of  the  lasting  reverence  of  mankind. 
It  is  only  natural  that  their  words  should  be  full  of  sublimity 
whose  thoughts  are  full  of  majesty.  Hence  subhme  thoughts 
belong  properly  to  the  loftiest  minds.  Such  was  the  reply 
of  Alexander  to  his  general  Parmenio,  when  the  latter  had 
observed,  "  Were  I  Alexander,  I  should  have  been  satisfied  " ; 
"And  I,  were  I  Parmenio  ..." 

The  distance  between  heaven  and  earth  |  —  a  measure, 
one  might  say,  not  less  appropriate  to  Homer's  genius  than 
to  the  stature  of  his  discord.  How  different  is  that  touch 
of  Hesiod's  in  his  description  of  sorrow  —  if  the  Shield  is 
really  one  of  his  works:  "  rheum  from  her  nostrils  flowed  "J 
—  an  image  not  terrible,  but  disgusting.  Now  consider 
how  Homer  gives  dignity  to  his  divine  persons  — 

"  As  far  as  lies  his  airy  ken,  who  sits 
On  some  tall  crag,  and  scans  the  wine-dark  sea: 
So  far  extends  the  heavenly  coursers'  stride."  § 

He  measures  their  speed  by  the  extent  of  the  whole  world  — 
a  grand  comparison,  which  might  reasonably  lead  us  to  re- 
mark that  if  the  divine  steeds  were  to  take  two  such  leaps  in 
succession,  they  would  find  no  room  in  the  world  for  another. 
Sublime  also  are  the  images  in  the  Battle  of  the  Gods  — 

*  Od.  xi.  543.  X  Scut.  Here.  267. 

t  //.  iv.  442.  §  //.  V.  770. 


LONG/iVUS  109 

"  A  trumpet  sound 
Rang  through  the  air,  and  shook  the  Olympian  height; 
Then  terror  seized  the  monarch  of  the  dead, 
And  springing  from  his  throne  he  cried  aloud 
With  fearful  voice,  lest  the  earth,  rent  asunder 
By  Neptune's  mighty  arm,  forthwith  reveal 
To  mortal  and  immortal  eyes  those  halls 
So  drear  and  dank,  which  e'en  the  gods  abhor."* 

Earth  rent  from  its  foundations  !     Tartarus  itself  laid  bare  ! 
The  whole  world  torn  asunder  and  turned  upside  down! 
Why,  my  dear  friend,  this  is  a  perfect  hurly-burly,  in  which 
the  whole  universe,  heaven  and  hell,  mortals  and  immortals, 
share  the  conflict  and  the  peril.     A  terrible  picture,  certainly, 
but  (unless  perhaps  it  is  to  be  taken  allegorically)  downright 
impious,  and  overstepping  the  bounds  of  decency.     It  seems 
to  me  that  the  strange  medley  of  wounds,  quarrels,  revenges, 
tears,  bonds,  and  other  woes  which  make  up  the  Homeric 
tradition  of  the  gods  was  designed  by  its  author  to  degrade 
his  deities,  as  far  as  possible,  into  men,  and  exalt  his  men  into 
deities — or  rather,  his  gods  are  worse  off  than  his  human 
characters,  since  we,  when  we  are  unhappy,  have  a  haven  from 
ills  in  death,  while  the  gods,  according  to  him,  not  only  live 
forever,  but  live  forever  in  misery.    Far  to  be  preferred  to  this 
description  of  the  Battle  of  the  Gods  are  those  passages  which 
exhibit  the  divine  nature  in  its  true  Hght,  as  something  spot- 
less, great,  and  pure,  as,  for  instance,  a  passage  which  has  often 
been  handled  by  my  predecessors,  the  lines  on  Poseidon :  — 
"  Mountain  and  wood  and  solitary  peak, 
The  ships  Achaian,  and  the  towers  of  Troy, 
Trembled  beneath  the  god's  immortal  feet. 
Over  the  waves  he  rode,  and  round  him  played, 
Lured  from  the  deeps,  the  ocean's  monstrous  brood, 
With  uncouth  gambols  welcoming  their  lord: 
The  charmed  billows  parted:  on  they  flew."  t 
*  //.  xxi.  388;   .\x.  61.  t  //.  xiii.  18;  xx.  60;  .xiii.  19,  27. 


no  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

And  thus  also  the  lawgiver  of  the  Jews,  no  ordinary  man, 
having  formed  an  adequate  conception  of  the  Supreme  Being, 
gave  it  adequate  expression  in  the  opening  words  of  his 
"  Laws  " :  "  God  said  "  —  what  ?  —  "  let  there  be  light, 
and  there  was  light:   let  there  be  land,  and  there  was." 

I  trust  you  will  not  think  me  tedious  if  I  quote  yet  one 
more  passage  from  our  great  poet  (referring  this  time  to 
human  characters)  in  illustration  of  the  manner  in  which  he 
leads  us  with  him  to  heroic  heights.  A  sudden  and  baffling 
darkness  as  of  night  has  overspread  the  ranks  of  his  warring 
Greeks.    Then  Ajax  in  sore  perplexity  cries  aloud  — 

"  Almighty  Sire, 
Only  from  darkness  save  Achaia's  sons; 
No  more  I  ask,  but  give  us  back  the  day; 
Grant  but  our  sight,  and  slay  us,  if  thou  wilt."  * 

The  feelings  are  just  what  we  should  look  for  in  Ajax.  He 
does  not,  you  observe,  ask  for  his  life  —  such  a  request 
would  have  been  unworthy  of  his  heroic  soul  —  but  finding 
himself  paralyzed  by  darkness,  and  prohibited  from  em- 
ploying his  valor  in  any  noble  action,  he  chafes  because  his 
arms  are  idle,  and  prays  for  a  speedy  return  of  light.  "  At 
least,"  he  thinks,  "  I  shall  find  a  warrior's  grave,  even 
though  Zeus  himself  should  fight  against  me."  In  such  pas- 
sages the  mind  of  the  poet  is  swept  along  in  the  whirlwind  of 
the  struggle,  and,  in  his  own  words,  he 

"  Like  the  fierce  war-god,  raves,  or  wasting  fire 
Through  the  deep  thickets  on  a  mountain-side; 
His  lips  drop  foam."  f 

But  there  is  another  and  a  very  interesting  aspect  of  Homer's 
mind.  When  we  turn  to  the  Odyssey  we  find  occasion  to 
observe  that  a  great  poetical  genius  in  the  decline  of  power 

*  //.  xvii.  645.  t  ^^-  XV'  6oS' 


LONG  IN  us  1 1  I 

which  comes  with  old  age  naturally  leans  towards  the  fabu- 
lous. For  it  is  e\ident  that  this  work  was  composed  after 
the  Iliad,  in  proof  of  which  we  may  mention,  among  many 
other  indications,  the  introduction  in  the  Odyssey  of  the  sequel 
to  the  story  of  his  heroes'  adventures  at  Troy,  as  so  many  ad- 
ditional episodes  in  the  Trojan  war,  and  especially  the  tribute 
of  sorrow  and  mourning  which  is  paid  in  that  poem  to  de- 
parted heroes,  as  if  in  fulfilment  of  some  previous  design. 
The  Odyssey  is,  in  fact,  a  sort  of  epilogue  to  the  Iliad  — 

"  There  warrior  Ajax  lies,  Achilles  there, 
And  there  Patroclus,  godUke  counsellor; 
There  lies  my  own  dear  son."  * 

And  for  the  same  reason,  I  imagine,  whereas  in  the  Iliad,  which 
was  written  when  his  genius  was  in  its  prime,  the  whole 
structure  of  the  poem  is  founded  on  action  and  struggle,  in 
the  Odyssey  he  generally  prefers  the  narrative  style,  which 
is  proper  to  old  age.  Hence  Homer  in  his  Odyssey 
may  be  compared  to  the  setting  sun :  he  is  still  as  great 
as  ever,  but  he  has  lost  his  fervent  heat.  The  strain  is  now 
pitched  to  a  lower  key  than  in  the  "Tale  of  Troy  divine": 
we  begin  to  miss  that  high  and  equable  sublimity  which 
never  flags  or  sinks,  that  continuous  current  of  moving  inci- 
dents, those  rapid  transitions,  that  force  of  eloquence,  that 
opulence  of  imagery  which  is  ever  true  to  Nature.  Like  the 
sea  when  it  retires  upon  itself  and  leaves  its  shores  waste  and 
bare,  henceforth  the  tide  of  sublimity  begins  to  ebb,  and 
draws  us  away  into  the  dim  region  of  myth  and  legend. 
In  saying  this  I  am  not  forgetting  the  fine  storm-pieces  in 
the  Odyssey,  the  story  of  the  Cyclops, f  and  other  striking 
passages.  It  is  Homer  grown  old  I  am  discussing,  but 
still  it  is  Homer.  Yet  in  every  one  of  these  passages  the 
mythical  predominates  over  the  real. 

*  Od.  iii.  109.  t  Od.  ix.  182. 


112  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

My  purpose  in  making  this  digression  was,  as  I  said, 
to  point  out  into  what  trifles  the  second  childhood  of 
genius  is  too  apt  to  be  betrayed ;  such,  I  mean,  as  the  bag 
in  which  the  winds  are  conlined,*  the  tale  of  Odysseus's 
comrades  being  changed  by  Circe  into  swine  f  ("whimpering 
porkers"  Zoilus  called  them),  and  how  Zeus  was  fed  like  a 
nestling  by  the  doves, |  and  how  Odysseus  passed  ten  nights 
on  the  shipwreck  without  food,  §  and  the  improbable  inci- 
dents in  the  slaying  of  the  suitors.  ||  When  Homer  nods  like 
this,  we  must  be  content  to  say  that  he  dreams  as  Zeus 
might  dream.  Another  reason  for  these  remarks  on  the 
Odyssey  is  that  I  wished  to  make  you  understand  that  great 
poets  and  prose-writers,  after  they  have  lost  their  power  of 
depicting  the  passions,  turn  naturally  to  the  delineation  of 
character.  Such,  for  instance,  is  the  lifelike  and  character- 
istic picture  of  the  palace  of  Odysseus,  which  may  be  called 
a  sort  of  comedy  of  manners. 

X 

Let  us  now  consider  whether  there  is  anything  further 
which  conduces  to  the  Sublime  in  writing.  It  is  a  law  of 
Nature  that  in  all  things  there  are  certain  constituent  parts, 
coexistent  with  their  substance.  It  necessarily  follows, 
therefore,  that  one  cause  of  sublimity  is  the  choice  of  the 
most  striking  circumstances  involved  in  whatever  we  are 
describing,  and,  further,  the  power  of  afterwards  combining 
them  into  one  animate  whole.  The  reader  is  attracted  partly 
by  the  selection  of  the  incidents,  partly  by  the  skill  which 
has  welded  them  together.  For  instance,  Sappho,  in  dealing 
with  the  passionate  manifestations  attending  on  the  frenzy 
of  lovers,  always  chooses  her  strokes  from  the  signs  which  she 

*  Od.  X.  17.  t  Od.  X.  237.  X  Od.  xii.  62. 

§  Od.  xii.  447.  II  Od.  xxii.  passim. 


LOiXlJ/XUS  113 

has  observed  to  be  actually  exhibited  in  such  cases.  But  her 
pecuhar  excellence  hcs  in  the  felicity  with  which  she  chooses 
and  unites  together  the  most  striking  and  powerful  features. 

"  I  deem  that  man  divinely  blest 
Who  sits,  and,  gazing  on  thy  face, 
Hears  thee  discourse  with  eloquent  lips, 

And  marks  thy  lovely  smile. 
This,  this  it  is  that  made  my  heart 
So  wildly  flutter  in  my  breast; 
Whene'er  I  look  on  thee,  my  voice 

Falters,  and  faints,  and  fails; 
My  tongue's  benumbed;  a  subtle  fire 
Through  all  my  body  inly  steals; 
Mine  eyes  in  darkness  reel  and  swim ; 

Strange  murmurs  drown  my  ears; 
With  dewy  damps  my  limbs  are  chilled 
An  icy  shiver  shakes  my  frame; 
Paler  than  ashes  grows  my  cheek ; 

And  Death  seems  nigh  at  hand." 

Is  it  not  wonderful  how  at  the  same  moment  soul,  body, 
ears,  tongue,  eyes,  color,  all  fail  her,  and  are  lost  to  her 
as  completely  as  if  they  were  not  her  own  ?  Observe  too 
how  her  sensations  contradict  one  another  —  she  freezes, 
she  bums,  she  raves,  she  reasons,  and  all  at  the  same  in- 
stant. And  this  description  is  designed  to  show  that  she  is 
assailed,  not  by  any  particular  emotion,  but  by  a  tumult  of 
different  emotions.  All  these  tokens  belong  to  the  passion 
of  love;  but  it  is  in  the  choice,  as  I  said,  of  the  most  striking 
features,  and  in  the  combination  of  them  into  one  picture, 
that  the  perfection  of  this  Ode  of  Sappho's  lies.  Similarly 
Homer  in  his  descriptions  of  tempests  always  picks  out  the 
most  terrific  circumstances.  The  poet  of  the  "  Arimaspeia  " 
intended  the  following  lines  to  be  grand  — 

"  Herein  I  find  a  wonder  passing  strange. 

That  men  should  make  their  dwelling  on  the  deep, 
I 


114  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  IITERATURE 

Who  far  from  land  essaying  bold  to  range 
With  anxious  heart  their  toilsome  vigils  keep; 
Their  eyes  are  fixed  on  heaven's  starry  steep; 

The  ravening  billows  hunger  for  their  lives ; 

And  oft  each  shivering  wretch,  constrained  to  weep, 

With  suppliant  hands  to  move  heaven's  pity  strives, 

While  many  a  direful  qualm  his  very  vitals  rives." 

All  must  see  that  there  is  more  of  ornament  than  of  terror 
in  the  description.  Now  let  us  turn  to  Homer.  One  pas- 
sage will  suffice  to  show  the  contrast. 

"  On  them  he  leaped,  as  leaps  a  raging  wave, 
Child  of  the  winds,  under  the  darkening  clouds, 
On  a  swift  ship,  and  buries  her  in  foam ; 
Then  cracks  the  sail  beneath  the  roaring  blast, 
And  quakes  the  breathless  seamen's  shuddering  heart 
In  terror  dire:  death  lours  on  every  wave."  * 

Aratus  has  tried  to  give  a  new  turn  to  this  last  thought  — 

"  But  one  frail  timber  shields  them  from  their  doom,"  f  — 

banishing  by  this  feeble  piece  of  subtlety  all  the  terror  from 
his  description;  setting  limits,  moreover,  to  the  peril  de- 
scribed by  saying  "  shields  them"  ;  for  so  long  as  it  shields 
them  it  matters  not  whether  the  "  timber  "  be  "  frail  "  or 
stout.  But  Homer  does  not  set  any  fixed  limit  to  the  danger, 
but  gives  us  a  vivid  picture  of  men  a  thousand  times  on  the 
brink  of  destruction,  every  wave  threatening  them  with 
instant  death.  Moreover,  by  his  bold  and  forcible  com- 
bination of  prepositions  of  opposite  meaning  he  tortures  his 
language  to  imitate  the  agony  of  the  scene,  the  constraint 
which  is  put  on  the  words  accurately  reflecting  the  anxiety 
of  the  sailors'  minds,  and  the  diction  being  stamped,  as  it 
were,  with  the  peculiar  terror  of  the  situation.  Similarly 
Archilochus  in  his  description  of  the  shipwreck,  and  simi- 

*  //.  XV.  624.  t  Phccnomena,  299. 


LONG  IN  us  115 

larly  Demosthenes  when  he  describes  how  the  news  came 
of  the  taking  of  Elatca  *  —  "It  was  evening,"  etc.  Each  of 
these  authors  fastidiously  rejects  whatever  is  not  essential 
to  the  subject,  and  in  putting  together  the  most  vivid  fea- 
tures is  careful  to  guard  against  the  interposition  of  anything 
frivolous,  unbecoming,  or  tiresome.  Such  blemishes  mar 
the  general  effect,  and  give  a  patched  and  gaping  appearance 
to  the  edifice  of  sublimity,  which  ought  to  be  built  up  in  a 
solid  and  uniform  structure. 

XI 

Closely  associated  with  the  part  of  our  subject  we  have 
just  treated  of  is  that  excellence  of  writing  which  is  called 
amplification,  when  a  writer  or  pleader,  whose  theme  admits 
of  many  successive  starting-points  and  pauses,  brings  on 
one  impressive  point  after  another  in  a  continuous  and  as- 
cending scale.^  Now  whether  this  is  employed  in  the  treat- 
ment of  a  commonplace,  or  in  the  way  of  exaggeration, 
whether  to  place  arguments  or  facts  in  a  strong  light,  or  in 
the  disposition  of  actions,  or  of  passions  —  for  amplification 
takes  a  hundred  different  shapes  —  in  all  cases  the  orator 
must  be  cautioned  that  none  of  these  methods  is  complete 
without  the  aid  of  sublimity,  —  unless,  indeed,  it  be  our  object 
to  excite  pity,  or  to  depreciate  an  opponent's  argument.  In 
all  other  uses  of  amplification,  if  you  subtract  the  element 
of  sublimity  you  will  take  as  it  were  the  soul  from  the  body. 
No  sooner  is  the  support  of  sublimity  removed  than  the 
whole  becomes  lifeless,  nerveless,  and  dull. 

There  is  a  difference,  however,  between  the  rules  I  am 
now  giving  and  those  just  mentioned.  Then  I  was  speaking 
of  the  delineation  and  coordination  of  the  principal  cir- 
cumstances.   My  next  task,  therefore,  must  be  briefly  to 

*  De  Cor.  169. 


Il6  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

define  this  difference,  and  with  it  the  general  distinction 
between  amphlication  and  sublimity.  Our  whole  discourse 
will  thus  gain  in  clearness. 

XII 

I  must  first  remark  that  I  am  not  satisfied  with  the  defi- 
nition of  amplification  generally  given  by  authorities  on 
rhetoric.  They  explain  it  to  be  a  form  of  language  which 
invests  the  subject  with  a  certain  grandeur.  Yes,  but  this 
definition  may  be  applied  indifferently  to  sublimity,  pathos, 
and  the  use  of  figurative  language,  since  all  these  invest  the 
discourse  with  some  sort  of  grandeur.  The  difference  seems 
to  me  to  lie  in  this,  that  sublimity  gives  elevation  to  a  subject, 
while  ampHfication  gives  extension  as  well.  Thus  the  sub- 
lime is  often  conveyed  in  a  single  thought,  but  amplification 
can  only  subsist  with  a  certain  prolixity  and  diffusiveness. 
The  most  general  definition  of  amplification  would  explain 
it  to  consist  in  the  gathering  together  of  all  the  constituent 
parts  and  topics  of  a  subject,  emphasizing  the  argument  by 
repeated  insistence,  herein  differing  from  proof,  that  whereas 
the  object  of  proof  is  logical  demonstration,  .  .  . 

Plato,  like  the  sea,  pours  forth -his  riches  in  a  copious 
and  expansive  flood.  Hence  the  style  of  the  orator,  who  is 
the  greater  master  of  our  emotions,  is  often,  as  it  were,  red- 
hot  and  ablaze  with  passion,  whereas  Plato,  whose  strength 
lay  in  a  sort  of  weighty  and  sober  magnificence,  though  never 
frigid,  does  not  rival  the  thunders  of  Demosthenes.  And,  if 
a  Greek  may  be  allowed  to  express  an  opinion  on  the  subject 
of  Latin  htcrature,  I  think  the  same  difference  may  be 
discerned  in  the  grandeur  of  Cicero  as  compared  with  that 
of  his  Grecian  rival.  The  sublimity  of  Demosthenes  is 
generally  sudden  and  abrujjt:  that  of  Cicero  is  equally  dif- 
fused.    Demosthenes  is  vehement,  rapid,  vigorous,  terrible; 


LONG  IN  us  117 

he  burns  and  sweeps  away  all  before  him;  and  hence  we  may 
liken  him  to  a  whirlwind  or  a  thunderbolt:  Cicero  is  like 
a  widespread  conflagration,  which  rolls  over  and  feeds  on  all 
around  it,  whose  fire  is  extensive  and  burns  long,  breaking 
out  successively  in  different  places,  and  finding  its  fuel  now 
here,  now  there.  Such  points,  however,  I  resign  to  your 
more  competent  judgment. 

To  resume,  then,  the  high-strung  sublimity  of  Demos- 
thenes is  appropriate  to  all  cases  where  it  is  desired  to  ex- 
aggerate, or  to  rouse  some  vehement  emotion,  and  generally 
when  we  want  to  carry  away  our  audience  with  us.  We  must 
employ  the  diffusive  style,  on  the  other  hand,  when  we  wish 
to  overpower  them  with  a  flood  of  language.  It  is  suitable, 
for  example,  to  familiar  topics,  and  to  perorations  in  most 
cases,  and  to  digressions,  and  to  all  descriptive  and  de- 
clamatory passages,  and  in  dealing  with  history  or  natural 
science,  and  in  numerous  other  cases. 

XIII 

To  return,  however,  to  Plato:  how  grand  he  can  be  with 
all  that  gentle  and  noiseless  flow  of  eloquence  you  will  be 
reminded  by  this  characteristic  passage,  which  you  have 
read  in  his  Republic:  "They,  therefore,  who  have  no 
knowledge  of  wisdom  and  virtue,  whose  lives  are  passed 
in  feasting  and  similar  joys,  are  borne  downwards,  as 
is  but  natural,  and  in  this  region  they  w^ander  all  their 
lives;  but  they  never  lifted  up  their  eyes  nor  were  borne 
upwards  to  the  true  world  above,  nor  ever  tasted  of 
pleasure  abiding  and  unalloyed;  but  like  beasts  they 
ever  look  downwards,  and  their  heads  are  bent  to  the 
ground,  or  rather  to  the  table;  they  feed  full  their  bellies 
and  their  lusts,  and  longing  ever  more  and  more  for 
such   things  they  kick  and  gore  one  another  with   horns 


Il8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

and  hoofs  of  iron,  and  slay  one  another  in  their  insatiable 
desires."* 

We  may  learn  from  this  author,  if  we  would  but  observe 
his  example,  that  there  is  yet  another  path  besides  those 
mentioned  which  leads  to  sublime  heights.  What  path  do 
I  mean?  The  emulous  imitation  of  the  great  poets  and  prose- 
writers  of  the  past.  On  this  mark,  dear  friend,  let  us  keep 
our  eyes  ever  steadfastly  fixed.  Many  gather  ihe  divine 
impulse  from  another's  spirit,  just  as  we  are  told  that  the 
Pythian  priestess,  when  she  takes  her  seat  on  the  tripod, 
where  there  is  said  to  be  a  rent  in  the  ground  breathing  up- 
wards a  heavenly  emanation,  straightway  conceives  from 
that  source  the  godlike  gift  of  prophecy,  and  utters  her  in- 
spired oracles;  so  likewise  from  the  mighty  genius  of  the 
great  writers  of  antiquity  there  is  carried  into  the  souls  of 
their  rivals,  as  from  a  fount  of  inspiration,  an  effluence  which 
breathes  upon  them  until,  even  though  their  natural  temper 
be  but  cold,  they  share  the  sublime  enthusiasm  of  others. 
Thus  Homer's  name  is  associated  with  a  numerous  band  of 
illustrious  disciples  —  not  only  Herodotus,  but  Stesichorus 
before  him,  and  the  great  Archilochus,  and  above  all  Plato, 
who  from  the  great  fountain-head  of  Homer's  genius  drew 
into  himself  innumerable  tributary  streams.  Perhaps  it 
would  have  been  necessary  to  illustrate  this  point,  had  not 
Ammonius  and  his  school  already  classified  and  noted  down 
the  various  examples.  Now  what  I  am  speaking  of  is  not 
plagiarism,  but  resembles  the  process  of  copying  from  fair 
forms  or  statues  or  works  of  skilled  labor.  Nor  in  my 
opinion  would  so  many  fair  flowers  of  imagery  have  bloomed 
among  the  philosophical  dogmas  of  Plato,  nor  would  he  have 
risen  so  often  to  the  language  and  topics  of  poetry,  had  he  not 
engaged  heart  and  soul  in  a  contest  for  precedence  with 

*  Rep.  ix.  586,  A. 


LONG/A'US  1 19 

Homer,  like  a  young  champion  entering  the  lists  against  a 
veteran.  It  may  be  that  he  showed  too  ambitious  a  si)irit 
in  venturing  on  such  a  duel;  but  nevertheless  it  was  not 
without  advantage  to  him:  "  for  strife  like  this,"  as  Hesiod 
says,  "  is  good  for  men."  *  And  where  shall  we  find  a  more 
glorious  arena  or  a  nobler  crown  than  here,  where  even 
defeat  at  the  hands  of  our  predecessors  is  not  ignoble? 

XIV 

Therefore  it  is  good  for  us  also,  when  we  are  laboring 
on  some  subject  which  demands  a  lofty  and  majestic  style, 
to  imagine  to  ourselves  how  Homer  might  have  expressed 
this  or  that,  or  how  Plato  or  Demosthenes  would  have 
clothed  it  with  sublimity,  or,  in  history, Thucydides.  For  by 
our  fixing  an  eye  of  rivalry  on  those  high  examples  they 
will  become  like  beacons  to  guide  us,  and  will  perhaps  lift 
up  our  souls  to  the  fulness  of  the  stature  we  conceive. 
And  it  would  be  still  better  should  we  try  to  realize  this  fur- 
ther thought.  How  would  Homer,  had  he  been  here,  or  how 
would  Demosthenes,  have  hstened  to  what  I  have  written,  or 
how  would  they  have  been  affected  by  it?  For  what  higher 
incentive  to  exertion  could  a  writer  have  than  to  imagine 
such  judges  or  such  an  audience  of  his  works,  and  to  give  an 
account  of  his  writings  with  heroes  like  these  to  criticise 
and  look  on?  Yet  more  inspiring  would  be  the  thought, 
With  what  feelings  will  future  ages  through  all  time  read 
these  my  works  ?  If  this  should  awaken  a  fear  in  any 
writer  that  he  will  not  be  intelligible  to  his  contemporaries 
it  will  necessarily  follow  that  the  conceptions  of  his  mind 
will  be  crude,  maimed,  and  abortive,  and  lacking  that 
ripe  perfection  which  alone  can  win  the  applause  of  ages 
to  come. 

*  Opp.  29. 


120  THEORIES   OE  STYLE  EV  LITERATURE 

XV 

The  dignity,  grandeur,  and  energy  of  a  style  largely  de- 
pend on  a  proper  employment  of  images,  a  term  which  I  pre- 
fer to  that  usually  given.*  The  term  image  in  its  most  gen- 
eral acceptation  includes  every  thought,  hovv^soever  presented, 
v^hich  issues  in  speech.  But  the  term  is  now  generally  con- 
fined to  those  cases  when  he  who  is  speaking,  by  reason  of 
the  rapt  and  excited  state  of  his  feelings,  imagines  himself 
to  see  what  he  is  talking  about,  and  produces  a  similar 
illusion  in  his  hearers.  Poets  and  orators  both  employ 
images,  but  with  a  very  different  object,  as  you  are  well 
aware.  The  poetical  image  is  designed  to  astound;  the  ora- 
torical image  to  give  perspicuity.  Both,  however,  seek  to 
work  on  the  emotions. 

"  Mother,  I  pray  thee,  set  not  thou  upon  me 
Those  maids  with  bloody  face  and  serpent  hair: 
See,  see,  they  come,  they're  here,  they  spring  upon  me  !  "  f 

And  again  — 

"Ah,  ah,  she'll  slay  me !  whither  shall  I  fly?  "  J 

The  poet  when  he  wrote  Hke  this  saw  the  Erinyes  with  his 
own  eyes,  and  he  almost  compels  his  readers  to  see  them 
too.  Euripides  found  his  chief  delight  in  the  labor  of 
giving  tragic  expression  to  these  two  passions  of  madness 
and  love,  showing  here  a  real  mastery  which  I  cannot  think 
he  exhibited  elsewhere.  Still,  he  is  by  no  means  diffident  in 
venturing  on  other  fields  of  the  imagination.  His  genius 
was  far  from  being  of  the  highest  order,  but  by  taking  pains 
he  often  raises  himself  to  a  tragic  elevation.  In  his  sublimer 
moments  he  generally  reminds  us  of  Homer's  description 
of  the  lion  — 

*  ei'SaiXoTToii'at,  "  fictions  of  the  imagination,"  Hickie. 
t  Eur.  Orcsl.  255.  %  I  ph.  Taur.  291. 


LONG  IN  us  121 

"  With  tail  he  lashes  both  his  flanks  and  sides, 
And  spurs  himself  to  battle."  * 

Take,  for  instance,  that  passage  in  which  Helios,  in  handing 
the  reins  to  his  son,  says  — 

"Drive  on,  but  shun  the  burning  Libyan  tract; 
The  hot  dry  air  will  let  thine  axle  down : 
Toward  the  seven  Pleiades  keep  thy  steadfast  way." 

And  then  — 

"  This  said,  his  son  undaunted  snatched  the  reins, 
Then  smote  the  winged  coursers'  sides:  they  bound 
Forth  on  the  void  and  cavernous  vault  of  air. 
His  father  mounts  another  steed,  and  rides 
With  warning  voice  guiding  his  son.     '  Drive  there ! 
Turn,  turn  thy  car  this  way.'  "  \ 

May  we  not  say  that  the  spirit  of  the  poet  mounts  the  chariot 
with  his  hero,  and  accompanies  the  winged  steeds  in  their 
perilous  flight  ?  Were  it  not  so,  —  had  not  his  imagination 
soared  side  by  side  with  them  in  that  celestial  passage,  — 
he  would  never  have  conceived  so  vivid  an  image.  Similar 
is  that  passage  in  his  "Cassandra,"  beginning 

"  Ye  Trojans,  lovers  of  the  steed."  % 

.^schylus  is  especially  bold  in  forming  images  suited  to  his 
heroic  themes:  as  when  he  says  of  his  "  Seven  against 
Thebes  "  — 

"  Seven  mighty  men,  and  valiant  captains,  slew 

Over  an  iron-bound  shield  a  bull,  then  dipped 

Their  fingers  in  the  blood,  and  all  invoked 

Ares,  Enyo,  and  death-dealing  Flight 

In  witness  of  their  oaths,"  § 

and  describes  how  they  all  mutually  pledged  themselves 
without  flinching  to  die.     Sometimes,  however,  his  thoughts 

*  //.  XX.  170.  t  Eur.  Phal. 

X  Perhaps  from  the  lost  "Alexander"  (Jahn).  §  Sept.  c.  Th.  42. 


122  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

are  unshapen,  and  as  it  were  rough-hewn  and  rugged.  Not 
observing  this,  Euripides,  from  too  bhnd  a  rivalry,  sometimes 
falls  under  the  same  censure,  ^schylus  with  a  strange 
violence  of  language  represents  the  palace  of  Lycurgus  as 
possessed  at  the  appearance  of  Dionysus  — 

"The  halls  with  rapture  thrill,  the  roof's  inspired."  * 

Here  Euripides,  in  borrowing  the  image,  softens  its  extrava- 
gance t  — 

"  And  all  the  mountain  felt  the  god."  % 

Sophocles  has  also  shown  himself  a  great  master  of  the 
imagination  in  the  scene  in  which  the  dying  (Edipus  pre- 
pares himself  for  burial  in  the  midst  of  a  tempest,  §  and  where 
he  tells  how  Achilles  appeared  to  the  Greeks  over  his  tomb 
just  as  they  were  putting  out  to  sea  on  their  departure  from 
Troy.  II  This  last  scene  has  also  been  delineated  by  Si- 
monides  with  a  vividness  which  leaves  him  inferior  to  none. 
But  it  would  be  an  endless  task  to  cite  all  possible  examples. 
To  return,  then,  in  poetry,  as  I  observed,  a  certain  myth- 
ical exaggeration  is  allowable,  transcending  altogether  mere 
logical  credence.  But  the  chief  beauties  of  an  oratorical 
image  are  its  energy  and  reality.  Such  digressions  be- 
come offensive  and  monstrous  when  the  language  is  cast  in 
a  poetical  and  fabulous  mould,  and  runs  into  all  sorts  of 
impossibilities.  Thus  much  may  be  learnt  from  the  great 
orators  of  our  own  day,  when  they  tell  us  in  tragic  tones  that 
they  see  the  Furies  ^f — good  people,  can't  they  understand 
that  when  Orestes  cries  out 

*  Aesch.  Lycurg. 

t  Lit.  "  Giving  it  a  difTerent  flavor,"  as  Arist.  Poet,   rjbvanivi^  \6y(t>  x^pls 
€Kd(rT({)  Twv  elSQVj  vi.  2. 

t  Bacch.  ^26.  ^  Oed.  Col.  I sS6.  ||  In  his  lost  "  Polyxena." 

^  Comp.  Petronius,  Satyricon,  ch.  i.  passim. 


LONG  FN  us  123 

"  Off,  off,  I  say !  I  know  thee  who  thou  art, 
One  of  the  fiends  that  haunt  me :  I  feel  thine  arms 
About  me  cast,  to  drag  me  down  to  hell,"  * 

these  are  the  halhicinations  of  a  madman? 

Wherein,  then,  hcs  the  force  of  an  oratorical  image? 
Doubtless  in  adding  energy  and  passion  in  a  hundred  dif- 
ferent ways  to  a  speech;  but  especially  in  this,  that  when  it  is 
mingled  with  the  practical,  argumentative  parts  of  an  ora- 
tion, it  does  not  merely  convince  the  hearer,  but  enthralls 
him.  Such  is  the  effect  of  those  words  of  Demosthenes: 
t "  Supposing,  now,  at  this  moment  a  cry  of  alarm  were  heard 
outside  the  assize  courts,  and  the  news  came  that  the  prison 
was  broken  open  and  the  prisoners  escaped,  is  there  any  man 
here  who  is  such  a  trifler  that  he  would  not  run  to  the  rescue 
at  the  top  of  his  speed  ?  But  suppose  someone  came  forward 
with  the  information  that  they  had  been  set  at  liberty  by  the 
defendant,  what  then?  Why,  he  would  be  lynched  on  the 
spot  !  "  Compare  also  the  way  in  which  Hyperides  excused 
himself,  when  he  was  proceeded  a^^ainst  for  bringing  in  a 
bill  to  liberate  the  slaves  after  Chaeronea.  "  This  measure," 
he  said,  "  was  not  drawn  up  by  any  orator,  but  by  the  battle 
of  Chaeronea."  This  striking  image,  being  thrown  in  by 
the  speaker  in  the  midst  of  his  proofs,  enables  him  by  one 
bold  stroke  to  carry  all  mere  logical  objection  before  him. 
In  all  such  cases  our  nature  is  drawn  towards  that  which 
affects  it  most  powerfully:  hence  an  image  lures  us  away 
from  an  argument:  judgment  is  paralyzed,  matters  of  fact 
disappear  from  view,  eclipsed  by  the  superior  blaze.  Nor 
is  it  surprising  that  we  should  be  thus  affected;  for  when  two 
forces  are  thus  placed  in  juxtaposition,  the  stronger  must 
always  absorb  into  itself  the  weaker. 

On  sublimity  of  thought,  and  the  manner  in  which  it  arises 

*  Orest.  264.  t  c.  Titnocrat.  208, 


124  THEORIES   OE  STYLE  EV  LITERATURE 

from  native  greatness  of  mind,  from  imitation,  and  from  the 
employment  of  images,  this  brief  outHne  must  suffice.* 

XVI 

The  subject  which  next  claims  our  attention  is  that  of 
figures  of  speech.  I  have  already  observed  that  figures, 
judiciously  employed,  play  an  important  part  in  producing 
sublimity.  It  vv^ould  be  a  tedious,  or  rather  an  endless  task, 
to  deal  v^ith  every  detail  of  this  subject  here;  so  in  order  to 
establish  what  I  have  laid  down,  I  will  just  run  over,  without 
further  preface,  a  few  of  those  figures  which  are  most  effective 
in  lending  grandeur  to  language. 

Demosthenes  is  defending  his  policy;  his  natural  line  of 
argument  would  have  been:  "  You  did  not  do  wrong,  men  of 
Athens,  to  take  upon  yourselves  the  struggle  for  the  liber- 
ties of  Hellas.  Of  this  you  have  home  proofs.  They  did 
not  wrong  who  fought  at  Marathon,  at  Salamis,  and  Plataea." 
Instead  of  this,  in  a  sudden  moment  of  supreme  exaltation  he 
bursts  out  like  some  inspired  prophet  with  that  famous  ap- 
peal to  the  mighty  dead:  "  Ye  did  not,  could  not  have  done 
wrong.  I  swear  it  by  the  men  who  faced  the  foe  at  Mara- 
thon !  "  I  He  employs  the  figure  of  adjuration,  to  which 
I  will  here  give  the  name  of  Apostrophe.  And  what  docs 
he  gain  by  it  ?  He  exalts  the  Athenian  ancestors  to  the  rank 
of  divinities,  showing  that  we  ought  to  invoke  those  who  have 
fallen  for  their  country  as  gods;  he  fills  the  hearts  of  his 
judges  with  the  heroic  pride  of  the  old  warriors  of  Hellas; 
forsaking  the  beaten  path  of  argument  he  rises  to  the  loftiest 
altitude  of  grandeur  and  passion,  and  commands  assent  by 
the  startling  novelty  of  his  appeal;  he  apphes  the  healing 
charm  of  eloquence,  and  thus  "  ministers  to  the  mind  dis- 
eased "  of  his  countrymen,  until  lifted  by  his  brave  words 

*  He  passes  over  chs.  x.  xi.  f  De  Cor.  208. 


LONGINUS  125 

above  their  misfortunes  they  begin  to  feel  that  the  disaster 
of  Cha?ronea  is  no  less  glorious  than  the  victories  of  Mara- 
thon and  Salamis.  All  this  he  effects  by  the  use  of  one 
figure,  and  so  carries  his  hearers  away  with  him.  It  is  said 
that  the  germ  of  this  adjuration  is  found  in  Eupolis  — 

"  By  mine  own  fight,  by  Marathon,  I  say, 
Who  makes  my  heart  to  ache  shall  rue  the  day !  "  * 

But  there  is  nothing  grand  in  the  mere  employment  of  an 
oath.  Its  grandeur  will  depend  on  its  being  employed  in  the 
right  place  and  the  right  manner,  on  the  right  occasion,  and 
with  the  right  motive.  In  Eupolis  the  oath  is  nothing  be- 
yond an  oath;  and  the  Athenians  to  whom  it  is  addressed 
are  still  prosperous,  and  in  need  of  no  consolation.  More- 
over, the  poet  does  not,  like  Demosthenes,  swear  by  the  de- 
parted heroes  as  deities,  so  as  to  engender  in  his  audience  a 
just  conception  of  their  valor,  but  diverges  from  the  cham- 
pions to  the  battle  —  a  mere  lifeless  thing.  But  Demos- 
thenes has  so  skilfully  managed  the  oath  that  in  addressing 
his  countrymen  after  the  defeat  of  Chaeronea  he  takes  out  of 
their  minds  all  sense  of  disaster;  and  at  the  same  time,  while 
proving  that  no  mistake  has  been  made,  he  holds  up  an 
example,  confirms  his  arguments  by  an  oath,  and  makes  his 
praise  of  the  dead  an  incentive  to  the  living.  And  to  rebut 
a  possible  objection  which  occurred  to  him  —  "  Can  you, 
Demosthenes,  whose  policy  ended  in  defeat,  swear  by  a  vic- 
tory?"—  the  orator  proceeds  to  measure  his  language, 
choosing  his  very  words  so  as  to  give  no  handle  to  opponents, 
thus  showing  us  that  even  in  our  most  inspired  moments 
reason  ought  to  hold  the  reins. f  Let  us  mark  his  words: 
"Those  who  ]aced  the  joe  at  Marathon;   those  who  fought 

*  In  his  (lost)  "Demi." 

t  Lit.  "That  even  in  the  midst  of  the  revels  of  Bacchus  we  ought  to  remain 
sober." 


126  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

in  the  sea-fights  of  Salamis  and  Artemisium;  those  who  stood 
in  the  ranks  at  Plataea."  Note  that  he  nowhere  says  "  those 
who  conquered,''^  artfully  suppressing  any  word  which  might 
hint  at  the  successful  issue  of  those  battles,  which  would  have 
spoilt  the  parallel  with  ChcEronea.  And  for  the  same  reason 
he  steals  a  march  on  his  audience,  adding  immediately:  "All 
of  whom,  ^schines,  —  not  those  who  were  successful  only, 
—  were  buried  by  the  state  at  the  public  expense." 

XVII 

There  is  one  truth  which  my  studies  have  led  me  to  ob- 
serve, which  perhaps  it  would  be  worth  while  to  set  down 
briefly  here.  It  is  this,  that  by  a  natural  law  the  Sublime,  be- 
sides receiving  an  acquisition  of  strength  from  figures,  in  its 
turn  lends  support  in  a  remarkable  manner  to  them.  To 
explain:  the  use  of  figures  has  a  peculiar  tendency  to  rouse 
a  suspicion  of  dishonesty,  and  to  create  an  impression  of 
treachery,  scheming,  and  false  reasoning ;  especially  if  the 
person  addressed  be  a  judge,  who  is  master  of  the  situation, 
and  still  more  in  the  case  of  a  despot,  a  king,  a  military  po- 
tentate, or  any  of  those  who  sit  in  high  places.*  If  a  man 
feels  that  this  artful  speaker  is  treating  him  like  a  silly  boy 
and  trying  to  throw  dust  in  his  eyes,  he  at  once  grows  ir- 
ritated, and  thinking  that  such  false  reasoning  implies  a  con- 
tempt of  his  understanding,  he  perhaps  flies  into  a  rage  and 
will  not  hear  another  word;  or  even  if  he  masters  his  resent- 
ment, still  he  is  utterly  indisposed  to  yield  to  the  persuasive 
power  of  eloquence.  Hence  it  follows  that  a  figure  is  then 
most  effectual  when  it  appears  in  disguise.  To  allay,  then, 
this  distrust  which  attaches  to  the  use  of  figures  we  must  call 
in  the  powerful  aid  of  sublimity  and  passion.  For  art,  once 
associated  with  these  great  allies,  will  be  overshadowed  by 

*  Reading  with  Cobet,  Kal  irdvTai  Toiis  iv  vwepoxai^ 


LONG  IN  us  127 

their  grandeur  and  beauty,  and  pass  beyond  the  reach  of  all 
suspicion.  To  prove  this  I  need  only  refer  to  the  passage 
already  quoted:  "  I  swear  it  by  the  men,"  etc.  It  is  the 
very  brilliancy  of  the  orator's  figure  which  blinds  us  to  the 
fact  that  it  is  a  figure.  For  as  the  fainter  lustre  of  the  stars 
is  put  out  of  sight  by  the  all-encompassing  rays  of  the  sun, 
so  when  sublimity  sheds  its  light  all  round  the  sophistries  of 
rhetoric  they  become  invisible.  A  similar  illusion  is  pro- 
duced by  the  painter's  art.  When  light  and  shadow  are 
represented  in  color,  though  they  lie  on  the  same  surface 
side  by  side,  it  is  the  light  which  meets  the  eye  first,  and 
appears  not  only  more  conspicuous  but  also  much  nearer. 
In  the  same  manner  passion  and  grandeur  of  language,  lying 
nearer  to  our  souls  by  reason  both  of  a  certain  natural  affinity 
and  of  their  radiance,  always  strike  our  mental  eye  before 
we  become  conscious  of  the  figure,  throwing  its  artificial 
character  into  the  shade  and  hiding  it  as  it  were  in  a  veil. 

XVIII 

The  figures  of  question  and  interrogation  also  possess  a 
specific  quality  which  tends  strongly  to  stir  an  audience  and 
give  energy  to  the  speaker's  words.  "Or  tell  me,  do  you  want 
to  run  about  asking  one  another,  is  there  any  news  ?  what 
greater  news  could  you  have  than  that  a  man  of  Macedon 
is  making  himself  master  of  Hellas  ?  Is  Philip  dead  ?  Not 
he.  However,  he  is  ill.  But  what  is  that  to  you?  Even 
if  anything  happens  to  him  you  will  soon  raise  up  another 
Philip."  Or  this  passage :  "  Shall  we  sail  against  Macedon  ? 
And  where,  asks  one,  shall  we  effect  a  landing?  The  war 
itself  will  show  us  where  Philip's  weak  places  he."  *  Now 
if  this  had  been  put  baldly  it  would  have  lost  greatly  in  force. 
As  we  see  it,  it  is  full  of  the  quick  alternation  of  question  and 

*  Phil.  i.  44. 


128  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

answer.  The  orator  replies  to  himself  as  though  he  were 
meeting  another  man's  o1:)jections.  And  this  iigure  not 
only  raises  the  tone  of  his  words  but  makes  them  more  con- 
vincing. For  an  exhibition  of  feeling  has  then  most  effect 
on  an  audience  when  it  appears  to  flow  naturally  from  the 
occasion,  not  to  have  been  labored  by  the  art  of  the  speaker; 
and  this  device  of  questioning  and  replying  to  himself  re- 
produces the  moment  of  passion.  For  as  a  sudden  question 
addressed  to  an  individual  will  sometimes  startle  him  into 
a  reply  which  is  an  unguarded  expression  of  his  genuine  senti- 
ments, so  the  figure  of  question  and  interrogation  blinds  the 
judgment  of  an  audience,  and  deceives  them  into  a  behef 
that  what  is  really  the  result  of  labor  in  every  detail  has  been 
struck  out  of  the  speaker  by  the  inspiration  of  the  moment. 
There  is  one  passage  in  Herodotus  which  is  generally 
credited  with  extraordinary  sublimity.  .  .  . 

XIX 

.  .  .  The  removal  of  connecting  particles  gives  a  quick  rush 
and  "  torrent  rapture  "  to  a  passage,  the  writer  appearing 
to  be  actually  almost  left  behind  by  his  own  words.  There 
is  an  example  in  Xenophon:  "  Clashing  their  shields  together 
they  pushed,  they  fought,  they  slew,  they  fell."  *  And  the 
words  of  Eurylochus  in  the  Odyssey  — 

"We  passed  at  thy  command  the  woodland's  shade; 
We  found  a  stately  hall  built  in  a  mountain  glade."  f 

Words  thus  severed  from  one  another  without  the  inter- 
vention of  stops  give  a  lively  impression  of  one  who  through 
distress  of  mind  at  once  halts  and  hurries  in  his  speech. 
And  this  is  what  Homer  has  expressed  by  using  the  figure 
Asyndeton. 

*  Xen.  Hel.  iv.  3.  19.  f  Od.  x.  251. 


LONG  IN  us  129 

XX 

But  nothing  is  so  conducive  to  energy  as  a  combination  of 
different  figures,  when  two  or  three  uniting  their  resources 
mutually  contribute  to  the  vigor,  the  cogency,  and  the 
beauty  of  a  speech.  So  Demosthenes  in  his  speech  against 
Meidias  repeats  the  same  words  and  breaks  up  his  sentences 
in  one  lively  descriptive  passage:  '*  He  who  receives  a  blow 
is  hurt  in  many  ways  which  he  could  not  even  describe  to 
another,  by  gesture,  by  look,  by  tone."  Then,  to  vary  the 
movement  of  his  speech,  and  prevent  it  from  standing  still 
(for  stillness  produces  rest,  but  passion  requires  a  certain 
disorder  of  language,  imitating  the  agitation  and  commotion 
of  the  soul),  he  at  once  dashes  off  in  another  direction,  break- 
ing up  his  words  again,  and  repeating  them  in  a  different 
form,  "  by  gesture,  by  look,  by  tone  —  w^hen  insult,  when 
hatred,  is  added  to  violence,  when  he  is  struck  with  the  fist, 
when  he  is  struck  as  a  slave  !  "  By  such  means  the  orator 
imitates  the  action  of  Meidias,  dealing  blow  upon  blow  on 
the  minds  of  his  judges.  Immediately  after  like  a  hurricane 
he  makes  a  fresh  attack:  "  When  he  is  struck  with  the  fist, 
when  he  is  struck  in  the  face;  this  is  what  moves,  this  is 
what  maddens  a  man,  unless  he  is  inured  to  outrage;  no 
one  could  describe  all  this  so  as  to  bring  home  to  his  hearers 
its  bitterness."  *  You  see  how  he  preserves,  by  continual 
variation,  the  intrinsic  force  of  these  repetitions  and  broken 
clauses,  so  that  his  order  seems  irregular,  and  conversely 
his  irregularity  acquires  a  certain  measure  of  order. 

XXI 

Supposing  we  add  the  conjunctions,  after  the  practice 
of  Isocrates  and  his  school:    "Moreover,  I  must  not  omit  to 

*  Meid.  72. 


130  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

mention  that  he  who  strikes  a  blow  may  hurt  in  many  ways, 
in  the  first  place  by  gesture,  in  the  second  place  by  look,  in 
the  third  and  last  place  by  his  tone."  If  you  compare  the 
words  thus  set  down  in  logical  sequence  with  the  expressions 
of  the  "Meidias,"  you  will  see  that  the  rapidity  and  rugged 
abruptness  of  passion,  when  all  is  made  regular  by  connecting 
links,  will  be  smoothed  away,  and  the  whole  point  and  fire 
of  the  passage  will  at  once  disappear.  For  as,  if  you  were 
to  bind  two  runners  together,  they  will  forthwith  be  deprived 
of  all  liberty  of  movement,  even  so  passion  rebels  against 
the  trammels  of  conjunctions  and  other  particles,  because 
they  curb  its  free  rush  and  destroy  the  impression  of  me- 
chanical impulse. 

XXII 

The  figure  hyperbaton  belongs  to  the  same  class.  By 
hyperbaton  we  mean  a  transposition  of  words  or  thoughts 
from  their  usual  order,  bearing  unmistakably  the  character- 
istic stamp  of  violent  mental  agitation.  In  real  life  we  often 
see  a  man  under  the  influence  of  rage,  or  fear,  or  indignation, 
or  beside  himself  with  jealousy,  or  with  some  other  out  of  the 
interminable  list  of  human  passions,  begin  a  sentence,  and 
then  swerve  aside  into  some  inconsequent  parenthesis,  and 
then  again  double  back  to  his  original  statement,  being 
borne  with  quick  turns  by  his  distress,  as  though  by  a  shift- 
ing wind,  now  this  way,  now  that,  and  playing  a  thousand 
capricious  variations  on  his  words,  his  thoughts,  and  the 
natural  order  of  his  discourse.  Now  the  figure  hyperbaton 
is  the  means  which  is  employed  by  the  best  writers  to  imitate 
these  signs  of  natural  emotion.  For  art  is  then  perfect 
when  it  seems  to  be  nature,  and  nature,  again,  is  most  effect- 
ive when  pervaded  by  the  unseen  presence  of  art.  An 
illustration   will  be  found   in   the  speech  of  Dionysius  of 


LONG  IN  us  131 

Phocaea  in  Herodotus:  "A  hair's  breadth  now  decides 
our  destiny,  lonians,  whether  we  shall  live  as  freemen  or  as 
slaves  —  ay,  as  runaway  slaves.  Now,  therefore,  if  you 
choose  to  endure  a  little  hardship,  you  will  be  able  at  the  cost 
of  some  present  exertion  to  overcome  your  enemies."  * 
The  regular  sequence  here  would  have  been:  "  lonians, 
now  is  the  time  for  you  to  endure  a  little  hardship;  for  a  hair's 
breadth  will  now  decide  our  destiny."  But  the  Phocaean 
transposes  the  title  "  lonians,"  rushing  at  once  to  the  sub- 
ject of  alarm,  as  though  in  the  terror  of  the  moment  he  had 
forgotten  the  usual  address  to  his  audience.  Moreover, 
he  inverts  the  logical  order  of  his  thoughts,  and  instead  of 
beginning  with  the  necessity  for  exertion,  which  is  the  point 
he  wishes  to  urge  upon  them,  he  first  gives  them  the  reason 
for  that  necessity  in  the  words,  "  a  hair's  breadth  now  decides 
our  destiny,"  so  that  his  words  seem  unpremeditated,  and 
forced  upon  him  by  the  crisis. 

Thucydides  surpasses  all  other  writers  in  the  bold  use  of 
this  figure,  even  breaking  up  sentences  which  are  by  their 
nature  absolutely  one  and  indivisible.  But  nowhere  do  we 
find  it  so  unsparingly  employed  as  in  Demosthenes,  who 
though  not  so  daring  in  his  manner  of  using  it  as  the  elder 
writer  is  very  happy  in  giving  to  his  speeches  by  frequent 
transpositions  the  lively  air  of  unstudied  debate.  Moreover, 
he  drags,  as  it  were,  his  audience  with  him  into  the  perils 
of  a  long  inverted  clause.  He  often  begins  to  say  something, 
then  leaves  the  thought  in  suspense,  meanwhile  thrusting  in 
between,  in  a  position  apparently  foreign  and  unnatural, 
some  extraneous  matters,  one  upon  another,  and  having 
thus  made  his  hearers  fear  lest  the  whole  discourse  should 
break  down,  and  forced  them  into  eager  sympathy  with  the 
danger  of  the  speaker,  when  he  is  nearly  at  the  end  of  a  period 


132  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

he  adds  just  at  the  right  moment,  i.e.  when  it  is  least  ex- 
pected, the  point  which  they  have  been  waiting  for  so  long. 
And  thus  by  the  very  boldness  and  hazard  of  his  inversions 
he  produces  a  much  more  astounding  etiect.  I  forbear  to 
cite  examples,  as  they  are  too  numerous  to  require  it. 

XXIII 

The  juxtaposition  of  different  cases,  the  enumeration  of 
particulars,  and  the  use  of  contrast  and  climax,  all,  as  you 
know,  add  much  vigor,  and  give  beauty  and  great  elevation 
and  life  to  a  style.  The  diction  also  gains  greatly  in  diversity 
and  movement  by  changes  of  case,  time,  person,  number, 
and  gender. 

With  regard  to  change  of  number:  not  only  is  the  style 
improved  by  the  use  of  those  words  which,  though  singular 
in  form,  are  found  on  inspection  to  be  plural  in  meaning, 
as  in  the  lines  — 

"A  countless  host  dispersed  along  the  sand 
With  joyous  cries  the  shoal  of  tunny  hailed," 

but  it  is  more  worthy  of  observation  that  plurals  for  singu- 
lars sometimes  fall  with  a  more  impressive  dignity,  rousing 
the  imagination  by  the  mere  sense  of  vast  number.     Such 
is  the  effect  of  those  words  of  Q^dipus  in  Sophocles  — 
"  Oh  fatal,  fatal  ties ! 
Ye  gave  us  birth,  and  we  being  born  ye  sowed 
The  self-same  seed,  and  gave  the  world  to  view 
Sons,  brothers,  sires,  domestic  murder  foul, 
Brides,  mothers,  wives.   .  .  .  Ay,  ye  laid  bare 
The  blackest,  deepest  place  where  Shame  can  dwell."  * 

Here  we  have  in  either  case  but  one  person,  first  ffidipus, 
then  Jocasta;  but  the  expansion  of  number  into  the  plural 
gives  an  impression  of  multiplied  calamity.  So  in  the  fol- 
lowing plurals  — 

*  O.  R.  1403. 


LOXG/NUS  133 

"  There  came  forth  Hectors,  and  there  came  Sarpedons." 

And  in  those  words  of  Plato's  (which  we  have  already  ad- 
duced elsewhere),  referring  to  the  Athenians:  "  We  have 
no  Pelopses  or  Cadmuses  or  ^gyptuses  or  Danauses,  or  any 
others  out  of  all  the  mob  of  Hellenized  Vjarbarians,  dwelling 
among  us;  no,  this  is  the  land  of  pure  Greeks,  with  no  mix- 
ture of  foreign  elements,"  *  etc.  Such  an  accumulation  of 
words  in  the  plural  number  necessarily  gives  greater  pomp 
and  sound  to  a  subject.  But  we  must  only  have  recourse 
to  this  device  when  the  nature  of  our  theme  makes  it  al- 
lowable to  amplify,  to  multiply,  or  to  speak  in  the  tones  of 
exaggeration  or  passion.  To  overlay  every  sentence  with 
ornament  f  is  very  pedantic. 

XXIV 

On  the  other  hand,  the  contraction  of  plurals  into  singulars 
sometimes  creates  an  appearance  of  great  dignity;  as  in  that 
phrase  of  Demosthenes:  "Thereupon  all  Peloponnesus 
was  divided."  |  There  is  another  in  Herodotus:  "  When 
Phrynichus  brought  a  drama  on  the  stage  entitled  The  Taking 
of  M ileitis,  the  whole  theatre  fell  a  weeping  "  —  instead  of 
"all  the  spectators."  This  knitting  together  of  a  number  of 
scattered  particulars  into  one  whole  gives  them  an  aspect  of 
corporate  hfe.  And  the  beauty  of  both  uses  lies,  I  think,  in 
their  betokening  emotion,  by  giving  a  sudden  change  of 
complexion  to  the  circumstances,  —  whether  a  word  which 
is  strictly  singular  is  unexpectedly  changed  into  a  plural,  — 
or  whether  a  number  of  isolated  units  are  combined  by  the 
use  of  a  single  sonorous  word  under  one  head. 

*  Menex.  245,  D. 

t  Lit.     "  To  hang  bells  everywhere,"  a  metaphor  from  the  bells  which  were 
attached  to  horses'  trappings  on  festive  occasions. 
X  De  Cor.  18. 


134  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

XXV 

When  past  events  are  introduced  as  happening  in  present 
time  the  narrative  form  is  changed  into  a  dramatic  action. 
Such  is  that  description  in  Xenophon:  "  A  man  who  has 
fallen  and  is  being  trampled  under  foot  by  Cyrus's  horse 
strikes  the  belly  of  the  animal  with  his  scimitar;  the  horse 
starts  aside  and  unseats  Cyrus,  and  he  falls."  Similarly 
in  many  passages  of  Thucydides. 

XXVI 

Equally  dramatic  is  the  interchange  of  persons,  often 
making  a  reader  fancy  himself  to  be  moving  in  the  midst  of 
the  perils  described  — 

"  Unwearied,  thou  would'st  deem,  with  toil  unspent, 
They  met  in  war;  so  furiously  they  fought  "  * 

and  that  line  in  Aratus  — 

"  Beware  that  month  to  tempt  the  surging  sea."  f 

In  the  same  way  Herodotus:  "Passing  from  the  city  of  Ele- 
phantine you  will  sail  upwards  until  you  reach  a  level  plain. 
You  cross  this  region,  and  there  entering  another  ship  you 
will  sail  on  for  two  days,  and  so  reach  a  great  city,  whose  name 
is  Meroe."  %  Observe  how  he  takes  us,  as  it  were,  by  the 
hand,  and  leads  us  in  spirit  through  these  places,  making  us  no 
longer  readers,  but  spectators.  Such  a  direct  personal  address 
always  has  the  effect  of  placing  the  reader  in  the  midst  of  the 
scene  of  action.  And  by  pointing  your  words  to  the  indi- 
vidual reader,  instead  of  to  the  reader  generally,  as  in  the  line 

"  Thou  had'st  not  known  for  whom  Tydides  fought,"  § 

and  thus  exciting  him  by  an  appeal  to  himself,  you  will  rouse 
interest,  and  fix  attention,  and  make  him  a  partaker  in  the 
action  of  the  book. 

*  //.  XV.  697.  t  Phan.  287.  %  ii.  29.  §  //.  v.  85. 


LONG  IN  us  135 


XXVII 


Sometimes,  again,  a  writer  in  the  midst  of  a  narrative 
in  the  third  person  suddenly  steps  aside  and  makes  a  tran- 
sition to  the  first.  It  is  a  kind  of  figure  which  strikes  like 
a  sudden  outburst  of  passion.    Thus  Hector  in  the  Iliad 

"  With  mighty  voice  called  to  the  men  of  Troy 
To  storm  the  ships,  and  leave  the  bloody  spoils: 
If  any  I  behold  with  willing  foot 
Shunning  the  ships,  and  lingering  on  the  plain, 
That  hour  I  will  contrive  his  death."  * 

The  poet  then  takes  upon  himself  the  narrative  part,  as 
being  his  proper  business;  but  this  abrupt  threat  he  at- 
tributes, without  a  word  of  warning,  to  the  enraged  Trojan 
chief.  To  have  interposed  any  such  words  as  "  Hector  said 
so  and  so  "  would  have  had  a  frigid  effect.  As  the  lines  stand 
the  writer  is  left  behind  by  his  own  words,  and  the  transition 
is  effected  while  he  is  preparing  for  it.  Accordingly  the 
proper  use  of  this  figure  is  in  dealing  with  some  urgent  crisis 
which  will  not  allow  the  writer  to  linger,  but  compels  him 
to  make  a  rapid  change  from  one  person  to  another.  So  in 
Hecatasus:  "  Now  Ceyx  took  this  in  dudgeon,  and  straight- 
way bade  the  children  of  Heracles  to  depart.  '  Behold, 
I  can  give  you  no  help;  lest,  therefore,  ye  perish  yourselves 
and  bring  hurt  upon  me  also,  get  ye  forth  into  some  other 
land.'  "  There  is  a  different  use  of  the  change  of  persons 
in  the  speech  of  Demosthenes  against  Aristogeiton,  which 
places  before  us  the  quick  turns  of  violent  emotion.  "  Is 
there  none  to  be  found  among  you,"  he  asks,  "  who  even 
feels  indignation  at  the  outrageous  conduct  of  a  loathsome 
and  shameless  wretch  who,  —  vilest  of  men,  when  you  were 
debarred  from  freedom  of  speech,  not  by  barriers  or  by 

*  //.  XV.  346. 


136  THEORIES   OE  STYLE  EV  LITERATURE 

doors,  which  might  indeed  be  opened,"  *  etc.  Thus  in  the 
midst  of  a  half-expressed  thought  he  makes  a  quick  change 
of  front,  and  having  ahnost  in  his  anger  torn  one  word  into 
two  persons,  "  who,  vilest  of  men,"  etc.,  he  then  breaks  off 
his  address  to  Aristogeiton,  and  seems  to  leave  him,  never- 
theless, by  the  passion  of  his  utterance,  rousing  all  the  more 
the  attention  of  the  court.  The  same  feature  may  be  ob- 
served in  a  speech  of  Penelope's  — 

"Why  com'st  thou,  Medon,  from  the  wooers  proud? 
Com'st  thou  to  bid  the  handmaids  of  my  lord 
To  cease  their  tast;s,  and  make  for  them  good  cheer? 
Ill  fare  their  wooing,  and  their  gathering  here ! 
Would  God  that  here  this  hour  they  all  might  take 
Their  last,  their  latest  meal !     Who  day  by  day 
Make  here  your  muster,  to  devour  and  waste 
The  substance  of  my  son :  have  ye  not  heard 
When  children  at  your  fathers'  knee  the  deeds 
And  prowess  of  your  king?  "  f 

XXVIII 

None,  I  suppose,  would  dispute  the  fact  that  periphrasis 
tends  much  to  sublimity.  For,  as  in  music  the  simple  air 
is  rendered  more  pleasing  by  the  addition  of  harmony,  so 
in  language  periphrasis  often  sounds  in  concord  with  a  literal 
expression,  adding  much  to  the  beauty  of  its  tone,  —  pro- 
vided always  that  it  is  not  inflated  and  harsli,  but  agreeably 
blended.  To  conlirm  this  one  passage  from  Plato  will 
suffice  —  the  opening  words  of  his  Funeral  Oration:  "  In- 
deed these  men  have  now  received  from  us  their  due,  and 
that  tribute  ])aid  they  are  now  passing  on  their  destined 
journey,  with  the  State  speeding  them  all  and  his  own  friends 
speeding  each  one  of  them  on  his  way."  |  Death,  you  sec, 
he  calls  the  "destined  journey";  to  receive  the  rites  of 
*  c.  Aristog.  i.  27.  f  Od.  iv.  681.  \  Menex.  236,  D. 


LONG  IN  us  137 

burial  is  to  be  publicly  "  sped  on  your  way  "  by  the  State. 
And  these  turns  of  language  lend  dignity  in  no  common 
measure  to  the  thought.  He  takes  the  words  in  their  naked 
simplicity  and  handles  them  as  a  musician,  investing  them 
with  melody,  —  harmonizing  them,  as  it  were,  —  by  the 
use  of  periphrasis.  So  Xenophon:  '' Labor  you  regard  as 
the  guide  to  a  pleasant  hfe,  and  you  have  laid  up  in  your 
souls  the  fairest  and  most  soldier-like  of  all  gifts:  in  praise 
is  your  delight,  more  than  in  anything  else."  *  By  saying, 
instead  of  "  you  are  ready  to  labor,"  "  you  regard  labor 
as  the  guide  to  a  pleasant  life,"  and  by  similarly  expanding 
the  rest  of  that  passage,  he  gives  to  his  eulogy  a  much  wider 
and  loftier  range  of  sentiment.  Let  us  add  that  inimitable 
phrase  in  Herodotus:  "Those  Scythians  who  pillaged  the 
temple  were  smitten  from  heaven  by  a  female  malady." 

XXIX 

But  this  figure,  more  than  any  other,  is  very  liable  to  abuse, 
and  great  restraint  is  required  in  employing  it.  It  soon 
begins  to  carry  an  impression  of  feebleness,  savors  of 
vapid  trifling,  and  arouses  digust.  Hence  Plato,  who  is 
very  bold  and  not  always  happy  in  his  use  of  figures,  is 
much  ridiculed  for  saying  in  his  Laws  that  "  neither  gold 
nor  silver  wealth  must  be  allowed  to  establish  itself  in  our 
State,"  t  suggesting,  it  is  said,  that  if  he  had  forbidden 
property  in  oxen  or  sheep  he  would  certainly  have  spoken  of 
it  as  "  bovine  and  ovine  wealth." 

Here  we  must  quit  this  part  of  our  subject,  hoping,  my 
dear  friend  Terentian,  that  your  learned  curiosity  will  be 
satisfied  with  this  short  excursion  on  the  use  of  figures  in 
their  relation  to  the  Sublime.     All  those  which  I  have  men- 

*  Cyrop.  i.  5.  12. 

f  De  Legg.  vii.  801,  B. 


138  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

tioned  help  to  render  a  style  more  energetic  and  impassioned; 
and  passion  contributes  as  largely  to  sublimity  as  the  delin- 
eation of  character  to  amusement. 

XXX 

But  since  the  thoughts  conveyed  by  words  and  the  ex- 
pression of  those  thoughts  are  for  the  most  part  interwoven 
with  one  another,  we  will  now  add  some  considerations 
which  have  hitherto  been  overlooked  on  the  subject  of  ex- 
pression. To  say  that  the  choice  of  appropriate  and  striking 
words  has  a  marvellous  power  and  an  enthralling  charm  for 
the  reader,  that  this  is  the  main  object  of  pursuit  with  all 
orators  and  writers,  that  it  is  this,  and  this  alone,  which 
causes  the  works  of  literature  to  exhibit  the  glowing  per- 
fections of  the  finest  statues,  their  grandeur,  their  beauty, 
their  mellowness,  their  dignity,  their  energy,  their  power, 
and  all  their  other  graces,  and  that  it  is  this  which  endows 
the  facts  with  a  vocal  soul;  to  say  all  this  would,  I  fear,  be, 
to  the  initiated,  an  impertinence.  Indeed,  we  may  say  with 
strict  truth  that  beautiful  words  are  the  very  light  of  thought. 
I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  imposing  language  is  appropriate  to 
every  occasion.  A  trifling  subject  tricked  out  in  grand  and 
stately  words  would  have  the  same  effect  as  a  huge  tragic 
mask  placed  on  the  head  of  a  little  child.  Only  in  poetry 
and  .  .  . 

XXXI 

.  .  .    There  is  a  genuine  ring  in  that  line  of  Anacreon's  — 

"  The  Thracian  filly  I  no  longer  heed." 

The  same  merit  bekmgs  to  that  original  phrase  in  Theo- 
])ompus;  to  me,  at  least,  from  the  closeness  of  its  anal- 
ogy,   it    seems   to   have   a    ])eculiar   expressiveness,    though 


LONG  IN  us  139 

Caecilius  censures  it,  without  telling  us  why.  "Philip,"  says 
the  historian,  "showed  a  marvellous  alacrity  in  taking  doses 
of  trouble y  We  see  from  this  that  the  most  homely  lan- 
guage is  sometimes  far  more  vivid  than  the  most  ornamental, 
being  recognized  at  once  as  the  language  of  common  life,  and 
gaining  immediate  currency  by  its  familiarity.  In  speaking, 
then,  of  Phihp  as  "  taking  doses  of  trouble,"  Theopompus  has 
laid  hold  on  a  phrase  which  describes  with  pecuhar  vividness 
one  who  for  the  sake  of  advantage  endured  what  was  base  and 
sordid  with  patience  and  cheerfulness.  The  same  may  be 
observed  of  two  passages  in  Herodotus:  "  Cleomenes  having 
lost  his  wits,  cut  his  own  flesh  into  pieces  with  a  short  sword, 
until  by  gradually  mincing  his  whole  body  he  destroyed 
himself  ";  *  and  "  Pythes  continued  fighting  on  his  ship  until 
he  was  entirely  hacked  to  pieces^  f  Such  terms  come  home 
at  once  to  the  vulgar  reader,  but  their  own  vulgarity  is  re- 
deemed by  their  expressiveness. 

XXXII 

Concerning  the  number  of  metaphors  to  be  employed  to- 
gether Caecilius  seems  to  give  his  vote  with  those  critics  who 
make  a  law  that  not  more  than  two,  or  at  the  utmost  three, 
should  be  combined  in  the  same  place.  The  use,  however, 
must  be  determined  by  the  occasion.  Those  outbursts  of 
passion  which  drive  onwards  like  a  winter  torrent  draw 
with  them  as  an  indispensable  accessory  whole  masses  of 
metaphor.  It  is  thus  in  that  passage  of  Demosthenes  (who 
here  also  is  our  safest  guide)  :  "  Those  vile  fawning  wretches, 
each  one  of  whom  has  lopped  from  his  country  her  fairest 
members,  who  have  toasted  away  their  liberty,  first  to  Phihp, 
now  to  Alexander,  who  measure  happiness  by  their  belly  and 
their  vilest  appetites,  who  have  overthrown  the  old  landmarks 

*  vi.  75.  t  vii.  181. 


I40  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITER.VITJRE 

and  standards  of  felicity  among  Greeks,  —  to  be  freemen,  and 
to  have  no  one  for  a  master."  *  Here  the  number  of  the 
metaphors  is  obscured  by  the  orator's  indignation  against  the 
betrayers  of  his  countr}'.  And  to  effect  this  Aristotle  and 
Theophrastus  recommend  the  softening  of  harsh  metaphors 
by  the  use  of  some  such  phrase  as  "  So  to  say,"  "  As  it  were," 
"  If  I  may  be  permitted  the  expression,"  "  If  so  bold  a  term 
is  allowable."  For  thus  to  forestall  criticism  f  mitigates,  they 
assert,  the  boldness  of  the  metaphors.  And  I  will  not  deny 
that  these  have  their  use.  Nevertheless  I  must  repeat  the 
remark  which  I  made  in  the  case  of  figures,  %  and  maintain 
that  there  are  native  antidotes  to  the  number  and  boldness  of 
metaphors,  in  well-timed  displays  of  strong  feeling,  and  in  un- 
affected sublimity,  because  these  have  an  innate  power  by  the 
dash  of  their  movement  of  sweeping  along  and  carrying  all  else 
before  them.  Or  should  we  not  rather  say  that  they  absolutely 
demand  as  indispensable  the  use  of  daring  metaphors,  and 
will  not  allow  the  hearer  to  pause  and  criticise  the  number  of 
them,  because  he  shares  the  passion  of  the  speaker? 

In  the  treatment,  again,  of  familiar  topics  and  in  descrip- 
tive passages  nothing  gives  such  distinctness  as  a  close  and 
continuous  series  of  metaphor.  It  is  by  this  means  that 
Xenophon  has  so  finely  delineated  the  anatomy  of  the  human 
frame.§  And  there  is  a  still  more  brilliant  and  life-like 
picture  in  Plato. ||  The  human  head  he  calls  a  citadel;  the 
neck  is  an  isthmus  set  to  divide  it  from  the  chest ;  to  support  it 
beneath  are  the  vertebrae,  turning  like  hinges;  pleasure  he 
describes  as  a  bait  to  tempt  men  to  ill;  the  tongue  is  the 
arbiter  of  tastes.    The  heart  is  at  once  the  knot  of  the  veins  and 

*  De  Cor.  296.  t  l^cading  viroTlfx-qai's. 

X  Ch.  xvii.  §  Memorah.  i.  4,  5. 

II  TimcBus,  69,  D;  74,  A;  65,  C;  72,  G;  74,  B,  D;  80,  E;  77,  G;  78, 
E;   85,  E. 


LONG  IN  us  141 

the  source  of  the  rapidly  circulating  blood,  and  is  stationed  in 
the  guard-room  of  the  body.  The  ramifying  blood-vessels  he 
calls  alleys.  "  And  casting  about,"  he  says,  "  for  something 
to  sustain  the  violent  palpitation  of  the  heart  when  it  is  alarmed 
by  the  approach  of  danger  or  agitated  by  passion,  since 
at  such  times  it  is  overheated,  they  (the  gods)  implanted  in  us 
the  lungs,  which  are  so  fashioned  that  being  soft  and  bloodless, 
and  having  cavities  within,  they  act  hke  a  buffer,  and  when 
the  heart  boils  with  inward  passion  by  yielding  to  its  throbbing 
save  it  from  injury."  He  compares  the  seat  of  the  desires  to  the 
women's  quarters,  the  seat  of  the  passions  to  the  men's  quar- 
ters, in  a  house.  The  spleen,  again,  is  the  napkin  of  the 
internal  organs,  by  whose  excretions  it  is  saturated  from  time 
to  time,  and  swells  to  a  great  size  with  inward  impurity. 
"  After  this,"  he  continues,  "  they  shrouded  the  whole  with 
flesh,  throwing  it  forward,  like  a  cushion,  as  a  barrier  against 
injuries  from  without."  The  blood  he  terms  the  pasture  of 
the  flesh.  "To  assist  the  process  of  nutrition,"  he  goes  on, 
"  they  divided  the  body  into  ducts,  cutting  trenches  hke  those 
in  a  garden,  so  that,  the  body  being  a  system  of  narrow  con- 
duits, the  current  of  the  veins  might  flow  as  from  a  perennial 
fountain-head.  And  when  the  end  is  at  hand,"  he  says, 
"  the  soul  is  cast  loose  from  her  moorings  like  a  ship,  and  free 
to  wander  whither  she  will."  These,  and  a  hundred  similar 
fancies,  follow  one  another  in  quick  succession.  But  those 
which  I  have  pointed  out  are  sufficient  to  demonstrate  how 
great  is  the  natural  power  of  figurative  language,  and  how 
largely  metaphors  conduce  to  sublimity,  and  to  illustrate  the 
important  part  which  they  play  in  all  impassioned  and  de- 
scriptive passages. 

That  the  use  of  figurative  language,  as  of  all  other  beauties 
of  style,  has  a  constant  tendency  towards  excess,  is  an  obvious 
truth  which  I  need  not  dwell  upon.     It  is  chiefly  on  this 


142  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

account  that  even  Plato  comes  in  for  a  large  share  of  dis- 
paragement, because  he  is  often  carried  away  by  a  sort  of 
frenzy  of  language  into  an  intemperate  use  of  violent  meta- 
phors and  inflated  allegory.  "  It  is  not  easy  to  remark"  (he 
says  in  one  place)  "  that  a  city  ought  to  be  blended  Hke  a  bowl, 
in  which  the  mad  wine  boils  when  it  is  poured  out,  but  being 
disciplined  by  another  and  a  sober  god  in  that  fair  society 
produces  a  good  and  temperate  drink."*  Really,  it  is  said,  to 
speak  of  water  as  a  "  sober  god,"  and  of  the  process  of  mix- 
ing as  a  "  discipline,"  is  to  talk  hke  a  poet,  and  no  very  sober 
one  either.  It  was  such  defects  as  these  that  the  hostile 
critic  t  Caecilius  made  his  ground  of  attack,  when  he  had  the 
boldness  in  his  essay  "  On  the  Beauties  of  Lysias"  to  pro- 
nounce that  writer  superior  in  every  respect  to  Plato.  Now 
Caecihus  was  doubly  unquahfied  for  a  judge :  he  loved  Lysias 
better  even  than  himself,  and  at  the  same  time  his  hatred  of 
Plato  and  all  his  works  is  greater  even  than  his  love  for  Lysias. 
Moreover,  he  is  so  blind  a  partisan  that  his  very  premises  are 
open  to  dispute.  He  vaunts  Lysias  as  a  faultless  and  im- 
maculate writer,  while  Plato  is,  according  to  him,  full  of 
blemishes.    Now  this  is  not  the  case :  far  from  it. 

XXXIII 

But  supposing  now  that  we  assume  the  existence  of  a  really 
unblemished  and  irreproachable  writer.  Is  it  not  worth 
while  to  raise  the  whole  question  whether  in  poetry  and  prose 
we  should  prefer  subhmity  accompanied  by  some  faults,  or  a 
style  which  never  rising  above  moderate  excellence  never 
stumbles  and  never  requires  correction  ?  and  again,  whether 
the  first  place  in  literature  is  justly  to  be  assigned  to  the  more 
numerous,  or  the  loftier  excellences  ?     For  these  are  questions 

*  ^egg.  vi.  773,  G. 

t  Reading  6  \xiaCiv  avrbv,  by  a  conjecture  of  the  translator. 


LONG  IN  us  143 

proper  to  an  inquiry  on  the  Sublime,  and  urgently  asking  for 
settlement. 

I  know,  then,  that  the  largest  intellects  are  far  from  being 
the  most  exact/  A  mind  always  intent  on  correctness  is  apt 
to  be  dissipated  in  trifles ;  but  in  great  affluence  of  thought, 
as  in  vast  material  wealth,  there  must  needs  be  an  occasional 
neglect  of  detail.  And  is  it  not  inevitably  so?  Is  it  not  by 
risking  nothing,  by  never  aiming  high,  that  a  writer  of  low  or 
middling  powers  keeps  generally  clear  of  faults  and  secure  of 
blame  ?  whereas  the  loftier  w^alks  of  literature  are  by  their 
very  loftiness  perilous  ?  I  am  well  aware,  again,  that  there  is 
a  law  by  which  in  all  human  productions  the  weak  points 
catch  the  eye  first,  by  which  their  faults  remain  indelibly 
stamped  on  the  memory,  while  their  beauties  quickly  fade 
away.  Yet,  though  I  have  myself  noted  not  a  few  faulty 
passages  in  Homer  and  in  other  authors  of  the  highest  rank, 
and  though  I  am  far  from  being  partial  to  their  failings,  never- 
theless I  would  call  them  not  so  much  wilful  blunders  as 
oversights  which  were  allowed  to  pass  unregarded  through 
that  contempt  of  httle  things,  that  "  brave  disorder,"  which 
is  natural  to  an  exalted  genius;  and  I  still  think  that  the 
greater  excellences,  though  not  everywhere  equally  sustained, 
ought  always  to  be  voted  to  the  first  place  in  literature,  if  for 
no  other  reason,  for  the  mere  grandeur  of  soul  they  evince. 
Let  us  take  an  instance:  Apollonius  in  his  Argonautica  has 
given  us  a  poem  actually  faultless;  and  in  his  pastoral  poetry 
Theocritus  is  eminently  happy,  except  when  he  occasionally 
attempts  another  style.  And  what  then?  Would  you 
rather  be  a  Homer  or  an  Apollonius  ?  Or  take  Eratosthenes 
and  his  Erigone;  because  that  little  work  is  without  a  flaw,  is 
he  therefore  a  greater  poet  than  Archilochus,  with  all  his 
disorderly  profusion?  greater  than  that  impetuous,  that 
god-gifted  genius,  which  chafed  against  the  restraints  of  law  ? 


144  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

or  in  lyric  poetry  would  you  choose  to  be  a  Bacchylides  or  a 
Pindar?  in  tragedy  a  Sophocles  or  (save  the  mark !)  an  lo  of 
Chios  ?  Yet  lo  and  Bacchylides  never  stumble,  their  style  is 
always  neat,  always  pretty;  while  Pindar  and  Sophocles 
sometimes  move  onwards  with  a  wide  blaze  of  splendor,  but 
often  drop  out  of  view  in  sudden  and  disastrous  eclipse. 
Nevertheless  no  one  in  his  senses  would  deny  that  a  single  play 
of  Sophocles,  the  (Edipus,  is  of  higher  value  than  all  the 
dramas  of  lo  put  together. 

XXXIV 

If  the  number  and  not  the  loftiness  of  an  author's  merits  is 
to  be  our  standard  of  success,  judged  by  this  test  we  must 
admit  that  Hyperides  is  a  far  superior  orator  to  Demosthenes. 
For  in  Hyperides  there  is  a  richer  modulation,  a  greater 
variety  of  excellence.  He  is,  we  may  say,  in  everything 
second-best,  like  the  champion  of  the  pentathlon,  who,  though 
in  every  contest  he  has  to  yield  the  prize  to  some  other  com- 
batant, is  superior  to  the  unpractised  in  all  five.  Not  only 
has  he  rivalled  the  success  of  Demosthenes  in  everything  but 
his  manner  of  composition,  but,  as  though  that  were  not 
enough,  he  has  taken  in  all  the  excellences  and  graces  of 
Lysias  as  well.  He  knows  when  it  is  proper  to  speak  with 
simplicity,  and  does  not,  like  Demosthenes,  continue  the  same 
key  throughout.  His  touches  of  character  are  racy  and 
sparkling,  and  full  of  a  delicate  flavor.  Then  how  admi- 
rable is  his  wit,  how  polished  his  raillery  !  How  well-bred  he 
is,  how  dexterous  in  the  use  of  irony  !  His  jests  are  pointed, 
but  without  any  of  the  grossness  and  vulgarity  of  the  old 
Attic  comedy.  He  is  skilled  in  making  light  of  an  opponent's 
argument,  full  of  a  well-aimed  satire  which  amuses  while  it 
stings;  and  through  all  this  there  runs  a  pervading,  may  we 
not  say,  a  matchless  charm.     He  is  most  apt  in  moving  com- 


LONG  IN  us  145 

passion;  his  mythical  digressions  show  a  fluent  ease,  and  he 
is  perfect  in  bending  his  course  and  finding  a  way  out  of  them 
without  violence  or  effort.  Thus  when  he  tells  the  story  of 
Leto  he  is  really  almost  a  poet;  and  his  funeral  oration  shows 
a  declamatory  magnificence  to  which  I  hardly  know  a  parallel. 
Demosthenes,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  touches  of  character, 
none  of  the  versatiHty,  fluency,  or  declamatory  skill  of 
Hyperides.  He  is,  in  fact,  almost  entirely  destitute  of  all 
those  excellences  which  I  have  just  enumerated.  When  he 
makes  violent  eft'orts  to  be  humorous  and  witty,  the  only 
laughter  he  arouses  is  against  himself;  and  the  nearer  he 
tries  to  get  to  the  winning  grace  of  Hyperides,  the  farther  he 
recedes  from  it.  Had  he,  for  instance,  attempted  such  a 
task  as  the  little  speech  in  defence  of  Phryne  or  Athenagoras, 
he  would  only  have  added  to  the  reputation  of  his  rival. 
Nevertheless  all  the  beauties  of  Hyperides,  however  numerous, 
cannot  make  him  sublime.  He  never  exhibits  strong  feeling, 
has  little  energy,  rouses  no  emotion;  certainly  he  never 
kindles  terror  in  the  breast  of  his  readers.  But  Demosthenes 
followed  a  great  master,  *  and  drew  his  consummate  ex- 
cellences, his  high-pitched  eloquence,  his  hving  passion,  his 
copiousness,  his  sagacity,  his  speed  — ■  that  mastery  and  power 
which  can  never  be  approached  —  from  the  highest  of  sources. 
These  mighty,  these  heaven-sent  gifts  (I  dare  not  call  them 
human),  he  made  his  own  both  one  and  all.  Therefore,  I 
say,  by  the  noble  quahtics  which  he  does  possess  he  remains 
supreme  above  all  rivals,  and  throws  a  cloud  over  his 
failings,  silencing  by  his  thunders  and  blinding  by  his 
lightnings  the  orators  of  all  ages.  Yes,  it  would  be  easier 
to  meet  the  lightning-stroke  with  steady  eye  than  to  gaze 
unmoved  when  his  impassioned  eloquence  is  sending  out 
flash  after  flash. 

*  I.e.  Thucydides. 


146  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 


XXXV 

But  in  the  case  of  Plato  and  Lysias  there  is,  as  I  said,  a 
further  difference.  Not  only  is  Lysias  vastly  inferior  to 
Plato  in  the  degree  of  his  merits,  but  in  their  number 
as  well;  and  at  the  same  time  he  is  as  far  ahead  of 
Plato  in  the  number  of  his  faults  as  he  is  behind  in 
that  of  his  merits. 

What  truth,  then,  was  it  that  was  present  to  those  mighty 
spirits  of  the  past,  who,  making  whatever  is  greatest  in  writing 
their  aim,  thought  it  beneath  them  to  be  exact  in  every  detail  ? 
Among  many  others  especially  this,  that  it  was  not  in  nature's 
plan  for  us  her  chosen  children  to  be  creatures  base  and  ig- 
noble, —  no,  she  brought  us  into  hfe,  and  into  the  whole 
universe,  as  into  some  great  field  of  contest,  that  we  should 
be  at  once  spectators  and  ambitious  rivals  of  her  mighty 
deeds,  and  from  the  first  implanted  in  our  souls  an  invincible 
yearning  for  all  that  is  great,  all  that  is  diviner  than  ourselves. 
Therefore  even  the  whole  world  is  not  wide  enough  for  the 
soaring  range  of  human  thought,  but  man's  mind  often  over- 
leaps the  very  bounds  of  space.*  When  we  survey  the  whole 
circle  of  life,  and  see  it  abounding  everywhere  in  what  is  ele- 
gant, grand,  and  beautiful,  we  learn  at  once  what  is  the  true 
end  of  man's  being.  And  this  is  why  nature  prompts  us  to 
admire,  not  the  clearness  and  usefulness  of  a  little  stream,  but 
the  Nile,  the  Danube,  the  Rhine,  and  far  beyond  all  the 
Ocean;  not  to  turn  our  wandering  eyes  from  the  heavenly 
fires,  though  often  darkened,  to  the  little  flame  kindled  by 
human  hands,  however  pure  and  steady  its  light ;  not  to  think 
that  tiny  lamp  more  wondrous  than  the  caverns  of  ^tna, 
from  whose  raging  depths  are  hurled  up  stones  and  whole 

*  Comp.  Lucretius  on  Epicurus:  "Ergo  vivida  vis  animi  pervicit,  et  extra 
Processit  longc  flammantia  moenia  mundi,"  etc. 


LONG  IN  us  14; 

masses  of  rock,  and  torrents  sometimes  come  pouring  from 
earth's  centre  of  pure  and  living  fire. 

To  sum  the  whole :  whatever  is  useful  or  needful  lies  easily 
within  man's  reach;  but  he  keeps  his  homage  for  what  is 
astounding. 

XXXVI 

How  much  more  do  these  principles  apply  to  the  Sublime 
in  literature,  where  grandeur  is  never,  as  it  sometimes  is  in 
nature,  dissociated  from  utility  and  advantage.  Therefore 
all  those  who  have  achieved  it,  however  far  from  faultless, 
are  still  more  than  mortal.  When  a  writer  uses  any  other 
resource  he  shows  himself  to  be  a  man ;  but  the  Sublime  lifts 
him  near  to  the  great  spirit  of  the  Deity.  He  who  makes  no 
shps  must  be  satisfied  with  negative  approbation,  but  he  who 
is  sublime  commands  positive  reverence.  Why  need  I  add 
that  each  one  of  those  great  writers  often  redeems  all  his 
errors  by  one  grand  and  masterly  stroke?  But  the  strongest 
point  of  all  is  that,  if  you  were  to  pick  out  all  the  blunders  of 
Homer,  Demosthenes,  Plato,  and  all  the  greatest  names  in 
literature,  and  add  them  together,  they  would  be  found  to  bear 
a  very  small,  or  rather  an  infinitesimal  proportion  to  the 
passages  in  which  these  supreme  masters  have  attained 
absolute  perfection.  Therefore  it  is  that  all  posterity,  whose 
judgment  envy  herself  cannot  impeach,  has  brought  and 
bestowed  on  them  the  crown  of  glory,  has  guarded  their  fame 
until  this  day  against  all  attack,  and  is  likely  to  preserve  it 

"  As  long  as  lofty  trees  shall  grow, 
And  restless  waters  seaward  flow." 

It  has  been  urged  by  one  writer  that  we  should  not  prefer 
the  huge  disproportioned  Colossus  to  the  Doryphorus  of 
Polycleitus.  But  (to  give  one  out  of  many  possible  answers)  in 
art  we  admire  exactness,  in  the  works  of  nature  magnificence; 


148  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

and  it  is  from  nature  that  man  derives  the  faculty  of  speech. 
Whereas,  then,  in  statuary  we  look  for  close  resemblance  to 
humanity,  in  literature  we  require  something  which  transcends 
humanity.  Nevertheless  (to  reiterate  the  advice  which  we 
gave  at  the  beginning  of  this  essay),  since  that  success  which 
consists  in  avoidance  of  error  is  usually  the  gift  of  art,  while 
high,  though  unequal  excellence  is  the  attribute  of  genius,  it  is 
proper  on  all  occasions  to  call  in  art  as  an  ally  to  nature.  By 
the  combined  resources  of  these  two  we  may  hope  to  achieve 
perfection. 

Such  are  the  conclusions  which  were  forced  upon  me 
concerning  the  points  at  issue;  but  every  one  may  consult  his 
own  taste. 

XXXVII 

To  return,  however,  from  this  long  digression;  closely 
allied  to  metaphors  are  comparisons  and  similes,  differing 
only  in  this  *  *  *    * 

XXXVIII 

Such  absurdities  as,  "  Unless  you  carry  your  brains  next  to 
the  ground  in  your  heels."  t  Hence  it  is  necessary  to  know 
where  to  draw  the  line;  for  if  ever  it  is  overstepped  the  effect 
of  the  hyperbole  is  spoilt,  being  in  such  cases  relaxed  by  over- 
straining, and  producing  the  very  opposite  to  the  effect  desired. 
Isocrates,  for  instance,  from  an  ambitious  desire  of  lending 
everything  a  strong  rhetorical  coloring,  shows  himself  in 
quite  a  childish  light.  Having  in  his  Panegyrical  Oration 
set  himself  to  prove  that  the  Athenian  state  has  surpassed  that 
of  Sparta  in  her  services  to  Hellas,  he  starts  off  at  the  very 
outset  with  these  words:  "  Such  is  the  power  of  language  that 
it  can  extenuate  what  is  great,  and  lend  greatness  to  what  is 
little,  give  freshness  to  what  is  antiquated,  and  describe  what 

*  The  asterisks  denote  gaps  in  the  original  text, 
t  Pseud.  Dcm.  dc  Ilalon.  45. 


LONG  IN  us  149 

is  recent  so  that  it  seems  to  be  of  the  past."  *  Come,  Isocrates 
(it  might  be  asked),  is  it  thus  that  you  are  going  to  tamper  with 
the  facts  about  Sparta  and  Athens?  This  flourish  about  the 
power  of  language  is  like  a  signal  hung  out  to  warn  his 
audience  not  to  believe  him.  We  may  repeat  here  what  we 
said  about  figures,  and  say  that  the  hyperbole  is  then  most 
effective  when  it  appears  in  disguise. f  And  this  effect  is  pro- 
duced when  a  writer,  impelled  by  strong  feeling,  speaks  in  the 
accents  cf  some  tremendous  crisis;  as  Thucydides  does  in 
describing  the  massacre  in  Sicily.  "The  Syracusans,"  he 
says,  "  went  down  after  them,  and  slew  those  especially  who 
were  in  the  river,  and  the  water  w^as  at  once  defiled,  yet  still 
they  went  on  drinking  it,  though  mingled  with  mud  and  gore, 
most  of  them  even  fighting  for  it."  J  The  drinking  of  mud  and 
gore,  and  even  the  fighting  for  it,  is  made  credible  by  the  awful 
horror  of  the  scene  described.  Similarly  Herodotus  on  those 
who  fell  at  Thermopylae :  "  Here  as  they  fought,  those  who 
still  had  them,  with  daggers,  the  rest  with  hands  and  teeth,  the 
barbarians  buried  them  under  their  javelins."  §  That  they 
fought  with  the  teeth  against  heavy-armed  assailants,  and 
that  they  were  buried  with  javelins,  are  perhaps  hard  sayings, 
but  not  incredible,  for  the  reasons  already  explained.  We 
can  see  that  these  circumstances  have  not  been  dragged  in  to 
produce  a  hyperbole,  but  that  the  hyperbole  has  grown 
naturally  out  of  the  circumstances.  For,  as  I  am  never  tired 
of  explaining,  in  actions  and  passions  verging  on  frenzy  there 
lies  a  kind  of  remission  and  palliation  of  any  hcence  of  lan- 
guage. Hence  some  comic  extravagances,  however  improb- 
able, gain  credence  by  their  humor,  such  as  — 

"  He  had  a  farm,  a  little  farm,  where  space  severely  pinches; 
'Twas  smaller  than  the  last  despatch  from  Sparta  by  some  inches." 

*  Paneg.  8.  f  xvii.  |  Thuc.  vii.  84.  §  vii.  225. 


150  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

For  mirth  is  one  of  the  passions,  having  its  scat  in  pleasure. 
And  hyperboles  may  be  employed  cither  to  increase  or  to 
lessen  —  since  exaggeration  is  common  to  both  uses.  Thus 
in  extenuating  an  opponent's  argument  we  try  to  make  it 
seem  smaller  than  it  is. 

XXXIX 

We  have  still  left,  my  dear  sir,  the  fifth  of  those  sources 
which  we  set  down  at  the  outset  as  contributing  to  sublimity, 
that  which  consists  in  the  mere  arrangement  of  words  in  a 
certain  order.  Having  already  published  two  books  dealing 
fully  with  this  subject  —  so  far  at  least  as  our  investigations 
had  carried  us  —  it  will  be  sufficient  for  the  purpose  of  our 
present  inquiry  to  add  that  harmony  is  an  instrument  which 
has  a  natural  power,  not  only  to  win  and  to  delight,  but  also  in 
a  remarkable  degree  to  exalt  the  soul  and  sway  the  heart  of 
man.  When  we  see  that  a  flute  kindles  certain  emotions  in  its 
hearers,  rendering  them  almost  beside  themselves  and  full  of  an 
orgiastic  frenzy,  and  that  by  starting  some  kind  of  rhythmical 
beat  it  compels  him  who  hstens  to  move  in  time  and  assimilate 
his  gestures  to  the  tune,  even  though  he  has  no  taste  whatever 
for  music;  when  we  know  that  the  sounds  of  a  harp,  which  in 
themselves  have  no  meaning,  by  the  change  of  key,  by  the 
mutual  relation  of  the  notes,  and  their  arrangement  in  sym- 
phony, often  lay  a  wonderful  spell  on  an  audience  —  though 
these  are  mere  shadows  and  spurious  imitations  of  per- 
suasion, not,  as  I  have  said,  genuine  manifestations  of  human 
nature: — can  we  doubt  that  composition  (being  a  kind  of 
harmony  of  that  language  which  nature  has  taught  us,  and 
which  reaches,  not  our  cars  only,  but  our  very  souls),  when  it 
raises  changing  forms  of  words,  of  thoughts,  of  actions,  of 
beauty,  of  melody,  all  of  which  are  engrained  in  and  akin  to 
ourselves,  and  when  Ijy  the  blending  of  its  manifold  tones  it 


LONG  IN  us  I  5  I 

brings  home  to  the  minds  of  those  who  stand  by  the  feelings 
present  to  the  speaker,  and  ever  disposes  the  hearer  to  sym- 
pathize with  those  fechngs,  adding  word  to  word,  until  it  has 
raised  a  majestic  and  harmonious  structure:  —  can  we  won- 
der if  all  this  enchants  us,  wherever  we  meet  with  it,  and  fill- 
ing us  with  the  sense  of  pomp  and  dignity  and  subhmity, 
and  whatever  else  it  embraces,  gains  a  complete  mastery  over 
our  minds?  It  would  be  mere  infatuation  to  join  issue  on 
truths  so  universally  acknowledged,  and  established  by  expe- 
rience beyond  dispute.* 

Now  to  give  an  instance:  that  is  doubtless  a  sublime 
thought,  indeed  wonderfully  fine,  which  Demosthenes  applies 
to  his  decree:  romo  to  -ylrTjcpiafia  rou  totc  rfj  TroXet  irepi- 
(ndvTa  KLvhvvov  irapekOelv  eTroitjaev  cocnrep  ve(f)0<;^  "This 
decree  caused  the  danger  which  then  hung  round  our 
city  to  pass  away  hke  a  cloud."  But  the  modulation  is  as 
perfect  as  the  sentiment  itself  is  weighty.  It  is  uttered  wholly 
in  the  dactylic  measure,  the  noblest  and  most  magnificent  of  all 
measures,  and  hence  forming  the  chief  constituent  in  the  finest 
metre  we  know,  the  heroic.  [And  it  is  with  great  judgment 
that  the  words  coanep  v€(f)o^  are  reserved  till  the  end.f] 
Supposing  we  transpose  them  from  their  proper  place  and 
read,  say  tovto  to  yfn](f)ia/xa  wairep  ve^o?  eTrotrjae  rov  rore 
Kivhvvov  TrapeXOelv  —  nay,  let  us  merely  cut  off  one  syllable, 
reading  i7roit]cr€  irapeXdelv  cb?  v€(f)o<;  —  and  you  will  under- 
stand how  close  is  the  unison  between  harmony  and  sub- 
limity. In  the  passage  before  us  the  words  wairep  ve^o<i 
move  first  in  a  heavy  measure,  which  is  metrically  equivalent 
to  four  short  syllables:  but  on  removing  one  syllable,  and 
reading   &>?    v€(f)o<;,    the    grandeur   of   movement  is  at  once 

*  Reading  d\\'  eoiKe  jj-avlg.,  and  putting  a  full  stop  at  iriffris. 
t  There  is  a  break  here  in  tlie  text ;   but  the  context  indicates  the  sense  of 
the  words  lost,  which  has  accordingly  been  supplied. 


152  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

crippled  by  the  abridgment.  So  conversely  if  you  lengthen 
into  (ucTTre/oel  i^e'^o?,  the  meaning  is  still  the  same,  but  it  does 
not  strike  the  ear  in  the  same  manner,  because  by  lingering 
over  the  final  syllables  you  at  once  dissipate  and  relax  the 
abrupt  grandeur  of  the  passage. 

XL 

There  is  another  method  very  efficient  in  exalting  a  style. 
As  the  different  members  of  the  body,  none  of  which,  if  sev- 
ered from  its  connection,  has  any  intrinsic  excellence,  unite 
by  their  mutual  combination  to  form  a  complete  and  perfect 
organism,  so  also  the  elements  of  a  fine  passage,  by  whose  sep- 
aration from  one  another  its  high  quality  is  simultaneously  dis- 
sipated and  evaporates,  when  joined  in  one  organic  whole,  and 
still  further  compacted  by  the  bond  of  harmony,  by  the  mere 
rounding  of  the  period  gain  power  of  tone.^  In  fact,  a  clause 
may  be  said  to  derive  its  sublimity  from  the  joint  contributions 
of  a  number  of  particulars.  And  further  (as  we  have  shown 
at  large  elsewhere),  many  writers  in  prose  and  verse,  though 
their  natural  powers  were  not  high,  were  perhaps  even  low, 
and  though  the  terms  they  employed  were  usually  common 
and  popular  and  conveying  no  impression  of  refinement,  by 
the  mere  harmony  of  their  composition  have  attained  dignity 
and  elevation,  and  avoided  the  appearance  of  meanness. 
Such  among  many  others  are  Philistus,  Aristophanes  oc- 
casionally, Euripides  almost  always.  Thus  when  Heracles 
says,  after  the  murder  of  his  children, 

"  I'm  full  of  woes,  I  have  no  room  for  more,"  * 

the  words  are  quite  common,  but  they  are  made  sublime  by 
being  cast  in  a  fine  mould.  By  changing  their  position  you 
will  see  that  the  poetical  quality  of  Euripides  depends  more  on 

*H.F.  1245. 


LONG  IN  us  153 

his  arrangement  than  on  his  thoughts.  Compare  his  lines  on 
Dirce  dragged  by  the  bull  — 

"  Whatever  crossed  his  path, 
Caught  in  his  victim's  form,  he  seized,  and  dragging 
OaTc,  vi^oman,  rock,  now  here,  now  there,  he  flies."  * 

The  circumstance  is  noble  in  itself,  but  it  gains  in  vigor 
because  the  language  is  disposed  so  as  not  to  hurry  the  move- 
ment, not  running,  as  it  were,  on  wheels,  because  there  is 
a  distinct  stress  on  each  word,  and  the  time  is  delayed, 
advancing  slowly  to  a  pitch  of  stately  sublimity. 

XLI 

Nothing  so  much  degrades  the  tone  of  a  style  as  an  effemi- 
nate and  hurried  movement  in  the  language,  such  as  is  pro- 
duced by  pyrrhics  and  trochees  and  dichorees  falling  in  time 
together  into  a  regular  dance  measure.  Such  abuse  of 
rhythm  is  sure  to  savor  of  coxcombry  and  petty  affectation, 
and  grows  tiresome  in  the  highest  degree  by  a  monotonous 
sameness  of  tone.  But  its  worst  effect  is  that,  as  those  who 
listen  to  a  ballad  have  their  attention  distracted  from  its 
subject  and  can  think  of  nothing  but  the  tune,  so  an  over- 
rhythmical  passage  does  not  affect  the  hearer  by  the  meaning 
of  its  words,  but  merely  by  their  cadence,  so  that  sometimes, 
knowing  where  the  pause  must  come,  they  beat  time  with  the 
speaker,  striking  the  expected  close  like  dancers  before  the 
stop  is  reached.  Equally  undignified  is  the  splitting  up  of  a 
sentence  into  a  number  of  httle  words  and  short  syllables 
crowded  too  closely  together  and  forced  into  cohesion,  — 
hammered,  as  it  were,  successively  together,  — after  the  man- 
ner of  mortice  and  tenon. f 

*  Antiope  (Nauck,  222). 

1 1  must  refer  to  Weiske's  Note,  which  I  have  followed,  for  the  probable 
interpretation  of  this  extraordinary  passage. 


154  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

XLII 

Sublimity  is  further  diminished  by  cramping  the  diction. 
Deformity  instead  of  grandeur  ensues  from  over-compression. 
Here  I  am  not  referring  to  a  judicious  compactness  of  phrase, 
but  to  a  style  which  is  dwarfed,  and  its  force  frittered  away. 
To  cut  your  words  too  short  is  to  prune  away  their  sense,  but 
to  be  concise  is  to  be  direct.  On  the  other  hand,  we  know  that 
a  style  becomes  lifeless  by  over-extension,  I  mean  by  being 
relaxed  to  an  unseasonable  length. 

XLIII 

The  use  of  mean  words  has  also  a  strong  tendency  to  de- 
grade a  lofty  passage.  Thus  in  that  description  of  the  storm 
in  Herodotus  the  matter  is  admirable,  but  some  of  the  words 
admitted  are  beneath  the  dignity  of  the  subject ;  such, 
perhaps,  as  "  the  seas  having  seethed"  because  the  ill-sound- 
ing phrase  "  having  seethed  "  detracts  much  from  its  impres- 
siveness:  or  when  he  says  "  the  wind  wore  away,"  and  "  those 
who  clung  round  the  wreck  met  with  an  unwelcome  end."  * 
"Wore  away"  is  ignoble  and  vulgar,  and  "unwelcome" 
inadequate  to  the  extent  of  the  disaster. 

Similarly  Theopompus,  after  giving  a  fine  picture  of  the 
Persian  king's  descent  against  Egypt,  has  exposed  the  whole 
to  censure  by  certain  paltry  expressions.  "There  was  no 
city,  no  people  of  Asia,  which  did  not  send  an  embassy  to  the 
king;  no  product  of  the  earth,  no  work  of  art,  whether  beau- 
tiful or  precious,  which  was  not  among  the  gifts  brought  to 
him.  Many  and  costly  were  the  hangings  and  robes,  some 
purple,  some  embroidered,  some  white;  many  the  tents,  of 
cloth  of  gold,  furnished  with  all  things  useful;  many  the 
tapestries  and  couches  of  great  price.    Moreover,  there  was 

*  Hdt.  vii.  188,  191,  13. 


LONG  IN  us  155 

gold  and  silver  plate  richly  wrought,  goblets  and  bowls,  some 
of  which  might  be  seen  studded  with  gems,  and  others  be- 
sides worked  in  relief  with  great  skill  and  at  vast  expense. 
Besides  these  there  were  suits  of  armor  in  number  past  compu- 
tation, partly  Greek,  partly  foreign,  endless  trains  of  baggage 
animals  and  fat  cattle  for  slaughter,  many  bushels  of  spices, 
many  panniers  and  sacks  and  sheets  of  writing-paper;  and 
all  other  necessaries  in  the  same  proportion.  And  there  was 
salt  meat  of  all  kinds  of  beasts  in  immense  quantity,  heaped 
together  to  such  a  height  as  to  show  at  a  distance  like  mounds 
and  hills  thrown  up  one  against  another."  He  runs  off  from 
the  grander  parts  of  his  subject  to  the  meaner,  and  sinks  where 
he  ought  to  rise.  Still  worse,  by  his  mixing  up  panniers  and 
spices  and  bags  with  his  wonderful  recital  of  that  vast  and  busy 
scene  one  would  imagine  that  he  was  describing  a  kitchen. 
Let  us  suppose  that  in  that  show  of  magnificence  someone 
had  taken  a  set  of  wretched  baskets  and  bags  and  placed  them 
in  the  midst,  among  vessels  of  gold,  jewelled  bowls,  silver  plate, 
and  tents  and  goblets  of  gold;  how  incongruous  would  have 
seemed  the  effect !  Now  just  in  the  same  way  these  petty 
words,  introduced  out  of  season,  stand  out  like  deformities 
and  blots  on  the  diction.  These  details  might  have  been 
given  in  one  or  two  broad  strokes,  as  when  he  speaks  of 
mounds  being  heaped  together.  So  in  dealing  with  the  other 
preparations  he  might  have  told  us  of  "  wagons  and  camels 
and  a  long  train  of  baggage  animals  loaded  with  all  kinds  of 
supplies  for  the  luxury  and  enjoyment  of  the  table,"  or  have 
mentioned  "  piles  of  grain  of  every  species,  and  of  all  the 
choicest  delicacies  required  by  the  art  of  the  cook  or  the 
taste  of  the  epicure,"  or  (if  he  must  needs  be  so  very  precise) 
he  might  have  spoken  of  "whatever  dainties  are  supplied 
by  those  who  lay  or  those  who  dress  the  banquet."  In  our 
sublimer  efforts  we  should  never  stoop  to  what  is  sordid  and 


156  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   EV  LITERATURE 

despicable,  unless  very  hard  pressed  by  some  urgent  necessity. 
If  we  would  write  becomingly,  our  utterance  should  be  worthy 
of  our  theme.  We  should  take  a  lesson  from  nature,  who 
when  she  planned  the  human  frame  did  not  set  our  grosser 
parts,  or  the  ducts  for  purging  the  body,  in  our  face,  but  as  far 
as  she  could  concealed  them,  "  diverting,"  as  Xenophon  says, 
"  those  canals  as  far  as  possible  from  our  senses,"  *  and  thus 
shunning  in  any  part  to  mar  the  beauty  of  the  whole  creature. 
However,  it  is  not  incumbent  on  us  to  specify  and  enumerate 
whatever  diminishes  a  style.  We  have  now  pointed  out  the 
various  means  of  giving  it  nobility  and  loftiness.  It  is  clear, 
then,  that  whatever  is  contrary  to  these  will  generally  degrade 
and  deform  it. 

XLIV 

There  is  still  another  point  which  remains  to  be  cleared 
up,  my  dear  Terentian,  and  on  which  I  shall  not  hesitate  to 
add  some  remarks,  to  gratify  your  inquiring  spirit.  It 
relates  to  a  question  which  was  recently  put  to  me  by  a  certain 
philosopher.  "To  me,"  he  said,  "  in  common,  I  may  say, 
with  many  others,  it  is  a  matter  of  wonder  that  in  the  present 
age,  which  produces  many  highly  skilled  in  the  arts  of  popular 
persuasion,  many  of  keen  and  active  powers,  many  especially 
rich  in  every  pleasing  gift  of  language,  the  growth  of  highly 
exalted  and  wide-reaching  genius  has  with  a  few  rare  excep- 
tions almost  entirely  ceased.  So  universal  is  the  dearth  of 
eloquence  which  prevails  throughout  the  world.  Must  we 
really,"  he  asked,  "  give  credit  to  that  oft-repeated  assertion 
that  democracy  is  the  kind  nurse  of  genius,  and  that  high 
literary  excellence  has  flourished  with  her  prime  and  faded 
with  her  decay?  Liberty,  it  is  said,  is  all-powerful  to  feed  the 
aspirations  of  high  intellects,  to  hold  out  hope,  and  keep  alive 

*  Mem.  i.  4.  6. 


LONG  IN  us  157 

the  flame  of  mutual  rivalry  and  ambitious  struggle  for  the 
highest  place.  Moreover,  the  prizes  which  are  offered  in  every 
free  state  keep  the  spirits  of  her  foremost  orators  whetted  by 
perpetual  exercise;  *  they  arc,  as  it  were,  ignited  by  friction, 
and  naturally  blaze  forth  freely  because  they  are  surrounded 
by  freedom.  But  we  of  to-day,"  he  continued,  "  seem  to 
have  learnt  in  our  childhood  the  lessons  of  a  benignant  despot- 
ism, to  have  been  cradled  in  her  habits  and  customs  from 
the  time  when  our  minds  were  still  tender,  and  never  to  have 
tasted  the  fairest  and  most  fruitful  fountain  of  eloquence,  I 
mean  liberty.  Hence  we  develop  nothing  but  a  fine  genius 
for  flattery.  This  is  the  reason  why,  though  all  other  faculties 
are  consistent  with  the  servile  condition,  no  slave  ever  be- 
came an  orator;  because  in  him  there  is  a  dumb  spirit  which 
will  not  be  kept  down :  his  soul  is  chained :  he  is  hke  one  who 
has  learnt  to  be  ever  expecting  a  blow.     For,  as  Homer  says  — 

"  '  The  day  of  slavery 
Takes  half  our  manly  worth  away.'  f 

As,  then  (if  what  I  have  heard  is  credible),  the  cages  in  which 
those  pygmies  commonly  called  dwarfs  are  reared  not  only 
stop  the  growth  of  the  imprisoned  creature,  but  absolutely 
make  him  smaller  by  compressing  every  part  of  his  body,  so 
all  despotism,  however  equitable,  may  be  defined  as  a  cage 
of  the  soul  and  a  general  prison." 

My  answer  was  as  follows:  "My  dear  friend,  it  is  so  easy, 
and  so  characteristic  of  human  nature,  always  to  find  fault 
with  the  present. J  Consider,  now,  whether  the  corruption 
of  genius  is  to  be  attributed,  not  to  a  world-wide  peace,§  but 

*  Comp.  Pericles  in  Thuc.  ii.,  aOXa  yap  ols  /cetTai  dpeTTJs  /xiy iff ra  rots  8^ 
Kal  dv8pe%  ApiffTOL  iroXiTevovffLf. 
t  Od.  xvii.  322. 

X  Comp.  Byron,  "The  good  old  times,  —  all  times  when  old  are  good." 
§  A  euphemism  for  "a  world-wide  tyranny." 


158  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

rather  to  the  war  within  us  which  knows  no  hmit,  which 
engages  all  our  desires,  yes,  and  still  further  to  the  bad  pas- 
sions which  lay  siege  to  us  to-day,  and  make  utter  havoc  and 
spoil  of  our  lives.  Are  we  not  enslaved,  nay,  are  not  our 
careers  completely  shipwrecked,  by  love  of  gain,  that  fever 
which  rages  unappeased  in  us  all,  and  love  of  pleasure  ?  — 
one  the  most  debasing,  the  other  the  most  ignoble  of  the 
mind's  diseases.  When  I  consider  it  I  can  find  no  means  by 
which  we,  who  hold  in  such  high  honor,  or,  to  speak  more 
correctly,  who  idolize  boundless  riches,  can  close  the  door  of 
our  souls  against  those  evil  spirits  which  grow  up  with  them. 
For  Wealth  unmeasured  and  unbridled  is  dogged  by  Ex- 
travagance: she  sticks  close  to  him,  and  treads  in  his  foot- 
steps: and  as  soon  as  he  opens  the' gates  of  cities  or  of  houses 
she  enters  with  him  and  makes  her  abode  with  him.  And 
after  a  time  they  build  their  nests  (to  use  a  wise  man's  words  *) 
in  that  corner  of  life,  and  speedily  set  about  breeding,  and 
beget  Boastfulness,  and  Vanity,  and  Wantonness,  no  base- 
born  children,  but  their  very  own.  And  if  these  also,  the 
offspring  of  Wealth,  be  allowed  to  come  to  their  prime,  quickly 
they  engender  in  the  soul  those  pitiless  tyrants.  Violence, 
and  Lawlessness,  and  Shamelessness.  Whenever  a  man  takes 
to  worshipping  what  is  mortal  and  irrational  f  in  him,  and 
neglects  to  cherish  what  is  immortal,  these  are  the  inevitable 
results.  He  never  looks  up  again ;  he  has  lost  all  care  for  good 
report ;  by  slow  degrees  the  ruin  of  his  life  goes  on,  until  it  is 
consummated  all  round;  all  that  is  great  in  his  soul  fades, 
withers  away,  and  is  despised. 

'*  If  a  judge  who  passes  sentence  for  a  bribe  can  never  more 
give  a  free  and  sound  decision  on  a  point  of  justice  or  honor 
(for  to  him  who  takes  a  bribe  honor  and  justice  must  be 
measured  by  his  own  interests),  how  can  we  of  to-day  expect, 

*  Plato,  Rep.  ix.  573,  E.  f  Reading  Kdudrjra. 


LONG  nv  us  159 

when  the  whole  Hfe  of  each  one  of  us  is  controlled  by  bribery, 
while  we  lie  in  wait  for  other  men's  death  and  plan  how  to  get 
a  place  in  their  wills,  when  we  buy  gain,  from  whatever  source, 
each  one  of  us,  with  our  very  souls  in  our  slavish  greed,  how, 
I  .say,  can  we  expect,  in  the  midst  of  such  a  moral  pestilence, 
that  there  is  still  left  even  one  hberal  and  impartial  critic, 
whose  verdict  will  not  be  biassed  by  avarice  in  judging  of  those 
great  works  which  live  on  through  all  time  ?  Alas !  I  fear 
that  for  such  men  as  we  are  it  is  better  to  serve  than  to  be  free. 
If  our  appetites  were  let  loose  altogether  against  our  neighbors, 
they  would  be  like  wild  beasts  uncaged,  and  bring  a  deluge  of 
calamity  on  the  whole  civilized  world." 

I  ended  by  remarking  generally  that  the  genius  of  the 
present  age  is  wasted  by  that  indifference  which  with  a  few 
exceptions  runs  through  the  whole  of  life.  If  we  ever  shake 
off  our  apathy  *  and  apply  ourselves  to  work,  it  is  always 
with  a  view  to  pleasure  or  applause,  not  for  that  solid  advan- 
tage which  is  worthy  to  be  striven  for  and  held  in  honor. 

We  had  better  then  leave  this  generation  to  its  fate,  and 
turn  to  what  follows,  which  is  the  subject  of  the  passions,  to 
which  we  promised  early  in  this  treatise  to  devote  a  separate 
work.f  They  play  an  important  part  in  hterature  generally, 
and  especially  in  relation  to  the  Sublime. 

*  Comp.  Thuc.  vi.  26.  2,  for  this  sense  of  avaXa/ji^dveiv.  f  iii. 

'  Compare  Bufifon,  below,  p.  175. 

^  Compare  Aristotle's  Rhetoric,  Book  I,  Chapter  IX  (Welldon's  transla- 
tion, p.  11). 

^  Compare  the  fault  criticised  by  Socrates  in  the  Phcedrus,  above,  p.  31. 

*  Test  this  statement  by  examples  in  history. 

'  Observe  a  similar  comparison  in  Plato,  above,  pp.  31-32. 


l60  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

V 

JONATHAN    SWIFT  (1667-1745) 
From   A  Letter  to  a  Young  Clergyman  (172 1) 

[Save  in  the  matter  of  punctuation,  the  text  of  this  selection  follows  that 
of  Swift's  Prose  Works  in  the  standard  (Bohn)  edition  by  Temple  Scott  (Lon- 
don, Bell,  1898,  Vol.  3,  pp.  200-207).  Swift's  punctuation  has  been  reduced 
in  a  measure  to  the  current  norm. 

The  selection  amounts  to  about  one  third  of:  A  Letter  to 
a  Young  Clergyman,  Lately  entered  into  Holy  Orders.  By  a 
Person  of  Quality.  London,  1721.  The  "Letter"  is  dated 
"Dublin,  January  the  gth,  1719-1720."  It  contains  the 
famous  epigram:  "  Proper  words  in  proper  places  make  the 
true  definition  of  a  style"  (see  below,  p.  161);  this  offers 
suiificient  excuse  for  the  inclusion  of  an  excerpt  in  the  present 
volume,  even  if  the  context  were  not  pertinent  reading  for  the 
student  of  composition.  The  epigram  will  be  better  under- 
stood in  its  context,  although  even  thus  the  reader  may  be 
puzzled  to  say  whether  its  author  is  here  satirical  or  not.  His 
irony  is  not  always  openly  biting;  at  times  it  is  wonderfully 
elusive,  cloaking  itself,  when  Swift  desires,  in  the  very  sim- 
plicity and  directness  of  his  language.  Covert  or  open,  Swift 
is  for  English  hterature  a  commanding  teacher  through  the 
medium  of  satire,  an  enduring  power  for  good  with  those  who 
have  the  imagination  to  interpret  him  aright.  His  advice  in 
this  selection  is  of  wider  range  than  merely  for  the  clergymen  of 
his  or  any  subsequent  day.  Of  course  due  allowance  must  be 
made  for  Swift's  mental  characteristics;  he  was  by  genius  and 
habit  an  instinctive  satirist,  and  he  was  a  sharer  in  modes  of 
thought  peculiar  to  his  age, — ^an  age  whose  philosophers  had 
long  agreed  that  enthusiasm  "should  never  prevail  over 
reason. "  Such  allowance  made,  his  wholesome  bitters  may  be 
taken  to  advantage,  at  least  by  all  who  desire  to  think  and 
to  write.     For  his  design  in  this  paper  is  not  so  much  to  in- 


SWIFT  l6l 

struct  us  in  the  business  oj  a  clergyman  or  a  preacher,  as  to 
warn  us  against  some  mistakes  which  are  obvious  to  the 
generality  of  mankind. 

Swift's  style  is  treated  at  some  length  in  Minto's  Manual  of 
English  Prose  Literature  —  a,  safe  guide;  in  the  present  vol- 
ume it  is  touched  on  by  Coleridge  (p.  206)  and  Mr.  Harrison 
(p.  446).] 

I  should  hkewise  have  been  glad  if  you  had  applied  your- 
self a  Httle  more  to  the  study  of  the  Enghsh  language  than 
I  fear  you  have  done;  the  neglect  whereof  is  one  of  the  most 
general  defects  among  the  scholars  of  this  kingdom,  who  seem 
not  to  have  the  least  conception  of  a  style,  but  run  on  in  a 
flat  kind  of  phraseology,  often  mingled  with  barbarous  terms 
and  expressions  pecuhar  to  the  nation.  Neither  do  I  per- 
ceive that  any  person  either  finds  or  acknowledges  his  wants 
upon  this  head,  or  in  the  least  desires  to  have  them  supplied. 
Proper  words  in  proper  places  make  the  true  definition  of  a 
style.  But  this  would  require  too  ample  a  disquisition  to  be 
now  dwelt  on;  however,  I  shall  venture  to  name  one  or  two 
faults  which  are  easy  to  be  remedied  with  a  very  small  portion 
of  abihties. 

The  first  is  the  frequent  use  of  obscure  terms,  which  by 
the  women  are  called  hard  words,  and  by  the  better  sort  of 
vulgar,  fine  language;  than  which  I  do  not  know  a  more 
universal,  inexcusable,  and  unnecessary  mistake  among  the 
clergy  of  all  distinctions,  but  especially  the  younger  prac- 
titioners. I  have  been  curious  enough  to  take  a  list  of  several 
hundred  words  in  a  sermon  of  a  new  beginner,  which  not  one 
of  his  hearers  among  a  hundred  could  possibly  understand; 
neither  can  I  easily  call  to  mind  any  clergyman  of  my  own 
acquaintance  who  is  wholly  exempt  from  this  error,  although 
many  of  them  agree  with  me  in  the  dislike  of  the  thing.  But 
I  am  apt  to  put  myself  in  the  place  of  the  vulgar,  and  think 


l62  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

many  words  difficult  or  obscure,  which  they  will  not  allow  to 
be  so,  because  those  words  are  obvious  to  scholars.  I  believe 
the  method  observed  by  the  famous  Lord  Falkland  '  in  some 
of  his  writings  would  not  be  an  ill  one  for  young  divines.  I 
was  assured  by  an  old  person  of  quality  who  knew  him  well, 
that  when  he  doubted  whether  a  word  was  perfectly  intelligible 
or  no  he  used  to  consult  one  of  his  lady's  chambermaids 
(not  the  waiting- woman,  because  it  was  possible  she  might 
be  conversant  in  romances),  and  by  her  judgment  was  guided 
whether  to  receive  or  reject  it.  And  if  that  great  person 
thought  such  a  caution  necessary  in  treatises  offered  to  the 
learned  world,  it  will  be  sure  at  least  as  proper  in  sermons, 
where  the  meanest  hearer  is  supposed  to  be  concerned,  and 
where  very  often  a  lady's  chambermaid  may  be  allowed  to 
equal  half  the  congregation  both  as  to  quality  and  under- 
standing. But  I  know  not  how  it  comes  to  pass  that  pro- 
fessors in  most  arts  and  sciences  are  generally  the  worst 
qualified  to  explain  their  meanings  to  those  who  are  not  of 
their  tribe:  a  common  farmer  shall  make  you  understand  in 
three  words  that  his  foot  is  out  of  joint,  or  his  collar-bone 
broken,  wherein  a  surgeon,  after  a  hundred  terms  of  art,  if 
you  are  not  a  scholar,  shall  leave  you  to  seek.  It  is  fre- 
quently the  same  case  in  law,  physic,  and  even  many  of  the 
meaner  arts. 

And  upon  this  account  it  is  that  among  hard  words  I 
number  likewise  those  which  are  peculiar  to  divinity  as  it  is 
a  science,  because  I  have  observed  several  clergymen,  other- 
wise little  fond  of  obscure  terms,  yet  in  their  sermons  very 
liberal  of  those  which  they  find  in  ecclesiastical  writers,  as  if 
it  were  our  duty  to  understand  them;  which  1  am  sure  it  is 
not.  And  I  defy  the  greatest  divine  to  produce  any  law 
either  of  God  or  man  which  obliges  me  to  comprehend  the 
meaning   of   omniscience^   omnipresence,   ubiquity,    attribute, 


SWIFT  163 

beatific  vision,  with  a  thousand  others  so  frequent  in  pulpits, 
any  more  than  that  of  eccentric,  idiosyncracy,  entity,  and  the 
like.  I  beheve  I  may  venture  to  insist  farther  that  many 
terms  used  in  Holy  Writ,  particularly  by  St.  Paul,  might 
with  more  discretion  be  changed  into  plainer  speech,  except 
when  they  are  .introduced  as  part  of  a  quotation. 

I  am  the  more  earnest  in  this  m.atter  because  it  is  a  gen- 
eral complaint  and  the  justest  in  the  world.  For  a  divine 
has  nothing  to  say  to  the  wisest  congregation  of  any  parish 
in  this  kingdom,  which  he  may  not  express  in  a  manner 
to  be  understood  by  the  meanest  among  them.  And  this 
assertion  must  be  true,  or  else  God  requires  from  us  more  than 
we  are  able  to  perform.  However,  not  to  contend  whether 
a  logician  might  possibly  put  a  case  that  would  serve  for  an 
exception,  I  will  appeal  to  any  man  of  letters  whether  at  least 
nineteen  in  twenty  of  those  perplexing  words  might  not  be 
changed  into  easy  ones,  such  as  naturally  first  occur  to 
ordinary  men,  and  probably  did  so  at  first  to  those  very 
gentlemen  who  are  so  fond  of  the  former. 

We  are  often  reproved  by  divines  from  the  pulpits  on 
account  of  our  ignorance  in  things  sacred,  and  perhaps  with 
justice  enough.  However,  it  is  not  very  reasonable  for  them 
to  expect  that  common  men  should  understand  expressions 
which  are  never  made  use  of  in  common  life.  No  gentle- 
man thinks  it  safe  or  prudent  to  send  a  servant  with  a  mes- 
sage, without  repeating  it  more  than  once,  and  endeavoring 
to  put  it  into  terms  brought  down  to  the  capacity  of  the 
bearer;  yet,  after  all  this  care,  it  is  frequent  for  servants  to 
mistake,  and  sometimes  to  occasion  misunderstandings 
among  friends;  although  the  common  domestics  in  some 
gentlemen's  families  have  more  opportunities  of  improving 
their  minds  than  the  ordinary  sort  of  tradesmen. 

It  is  usual  for  clergymen  who  are  taxed  with  this  learned 


1 64  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

defect  to  quote  Dr.  Tillotson  and  other  famous  divines  in 
their  defence;  without  considering  the  difference  between 
elaborate  discourses  upon  important  occasions,  delivered 
to  princes  or  parliaments,  written  with  a  view  of  being  made 
•pubhc,  and  a  plain  sermon  intended  for  the  middle  or  lower 
size  of  people.  Neither  do  they  seem  to  remember  the 
many  alterations,  additions,  and  expungings  made  by  great 
authors  in  those  treatises  which  they  prepare  for  the  pubhc. 
Besides,  that  excellent  prelate  above-mentioned  was  known 
to  preach  after  a  much  more  popular  manner  in  the  city 
congregations;  and  if  in  those  parts  of  his  works  he  be  any- 
where too  obscure  for  the  understandings  of  many  who  may 
be  supposed  to  have  been  his  hearers,  it  ought  to  be  num- 
bered among  his  omissions. 

The  fear  of  being  thought  pedants  hath  been  of  pernicious 
consequence  to  young  divines.  This  hath  wholly  taken  many 
of  them  off  from  their  severer  studies  in  the  university,  which 
they  have  exchanged  for  plays,  poems,  and  pamphlets,  in 
order  to  qualify  them  for  tea-tables  and  coffee-houses. 
This  they  usually  call  "  polite  conversation,  —  knowing  the 
world,  —  and  reading  men  instead  of  books."  These  accom- 
plishments when  apphed  to  the  pulpit  appear  by  a  quaint, 
terse,  florid  style,  rounded  into  periods  and  cadences,  com- 
monly without  either  propriety  or  meaning.  I  have  listened 
with  my  utmost  attention  for  half  an  hour  to  an  orator  of 
this  species  without  being  able  to  understand,  much  less 
to  carry  away,  one  single  sentence  out  of  a  whole  sermon. 
Others,  to  show  that  their  studies  have  not  been  confined 
to  sciences  or  ancient  authors,  will  talk  in  the  style  of  a 
gaming  ordinary  and  White  Friars,"  when  I  suppose  the 
hearers  can  be  little  edified  by  the  terms  of  palming,  shujjling, 
biting,^  bamboozling,  and  the  like,  if  they  have  not  been 
sometimes    conversant    among    pickpockets   and    sharpers. 


SWIFT  165 

And  truly,  as  they  say  a  man  is  known  by  his  company,  so 
it  should  seem  that  a  man's  company  may  be  known  by  his 
manner  of  expressing  himself,  either  in  public  assemblies  or 
private  conversation. 

It  would  be  endless  to  run  over  the  several  defects  of 
style  among  us;  I  shall  therefore  say  nothing  of  the  mean 
and  paltry  (which  are  usually  attended  by  the  fustian), 
much  less  of  the  slovenly  or  indecent.  Two  things  I  will 
just  warn  you  against :  the  first  is  the  frequency  of  flat,  un- 
necessary epithets ;  and  the  other  is  the  folly  of  using  old, 
threadbare  phrases,  which  will  often  make  you  go  out  of 
your  way  to  find  and  apply  them,  are  nauseous  to  rational 
hearers,  and  will  seldom  express  your  meaning  as  well  as 
your  own  natural  words. 

Although,  as  I  have  already  observed,  our  English  tongue 
is  too  little  cultivated  in  this  kingdom,  yet  the  faults  are  nine 
in  ten  owing  to  affectation  and  not  to  the  want  of  under- 
standing. When  a  man's  thoughts  are  clear,  the  properest 
words  will  generally  offer  themselves  first,  and  his  own  judg- 
ment will  direct  him  in  what  order  to  place  them,  so  as  they 
may  be  best  understood.  Where  men  err  against  this  method, 
it  is  usually  on  purpose,  and  to  show  their  learning,  their 
oratory,  their  pohteness,  or  their  knowledge  of  the  world. 
In  short,  that  simplicity  without  which  no  human  performance 
can  arrive  to  any  great  perfection  is  nowhere  more  eminently 
useful  than  in  this. 

I  have  been  considering  that  part  of  oratory  which  relates 
to  the  moving  of  the  passions;  this,  I  observe,  is  in  esteem 
and  practice  among  some  church  divines  as  well  as  among 
all  the  preachers  and  hearers  of  the  fanatic  or  enthusiastic 
strain.  I  will  here  deliver  to  you  (perhaps  with  more  free- 
dom than  prudence)  my  opinion  upon  the  point. 

The  two  great  orators  of  Greece  and  Rome,  Demosthenes 


1 66  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  Cicero,  though  each  of  them  a  leader  (or  as  the  Greeks 
call  it,  a  demagogue)  in  a  popular  state,  yet  seem  to  differ  in 
their  practice  upon  this  branch  of  their  art:  the  former,  who 
had  to  deal  with  a  people  of  much  more  politeness,  learning, 
and  wit,  laid  the  greatest  weight  of  his  oratory  upon  the 
strength  of  his  arguments  offered  to  their  understanding 
and  reason;  whereas  Tully  considered  the  dispositions  of  a 
sincere,  more  ignorant,  and  less  mercurial  nation,  by  dwell- 
ing almost  entirely  on  the  pathetic  part. 

But  the  principal  thing  to  be  remembered  is  that  the  con- 
stant design  of  both  these  orators  in  all  their  speeches  was 
to  drive  some  one  particular  point,  either  the  condemnation 
or  acquittal  of  an  accused  person,  a  persuasive  to  war,  the 
enforcing  of  a  law,  and  the  like;  which  was  determined  upon 
the  spot,  according  as  the  orators  on  either  side  prevailed. 
And  here  it  was  often  found  of  absolute  necessity  to  inflame 
or  cool  the  passions  of  the  audience,  especially  at  Rome, 
where  Tully  spoke,  and  with  whose  writings  young  divines 
(I  mean  those  among  them  who  read  old  authors)  are  more 
conversant  than  with  those  of  Demosthenes,  who  by  many 
degrees  excelled  the  other  at  least  as  an  orator.^  But  I  do 
not  see  how  this  talent  of  moving  the  passions  can  be  of 
any  great  use  toward  directing  Christian  men  in  the  conduct 
of  their  lives,  at  least  in  these  northern  climates,  where,  I 
am  confident,  the  strongest  eloquence  of  that  kind  will  leave 
few  impressions  upon  any  of  our  spirits  deep  enough  to  last 
till  the  next  morning,  or  rather  to  the  next  meal. 

But  what  hath  chiefly  put  me  out  of  conceit  with  this 
moving  manner  of  preaching  is  the  frequent  disappointment 
it  meets  with.  I  know  a  gentleman  who  made  it  a  rule  in 
reading  to  skip  over  all  sentences  where  he  spied  a  note  of 
admiration  at  the  end.  I  believe  those  preachers  who 
abound  in  epiphonemas,^  if  they  look  about  them,  would  find 


SWIFT  167 

one  part  of  their  congregation  out  of  countenance  and  the 
other  asleep,  except  perhaps  an  old  female  beggar  or  two  in 
the  aisles,  who  (if  they  be  sincere)  may  probably  groan  at 
the  sound. 

Nor  is  it  a  wonder  that  this  expedient  should  so  often 
miscarry,  which  requires  so  much  art  and  genius  to  arrive  at 
any  perfection  in  it,  as  any  man  will  find,  much  sooner  than 
learn,  by  consulting  Cicero  himself." 

I  therefore  entreat  you  to  make  use  of  this  faculty  (if  you 
ever  be  so  unfortunate  as  to  think  you  have  it)  as  seldom 
and  with  as  much  caution  as  you  can,  else  I  may  probably 
have  occasion  to  say  of  you  as  a  great  person  said  of  another 
upon  this  very  subject.  A  lady  asked  him  coming  out  of 
church  whether  it  were  not  a  very  moving  discourse  ?  "  Yes," 
said  he,  "  I  was  extremely  sorry,  for  the  man  is  my  friend." 

If  in  company  you  offer  something  for  a  jest  and  nobody 
second  you  in  your  own  laughter  nor  seems  to  relish  what 
you  said,  you  may  condemn  their  taste  if  you  please  and 
appeal  to  better  judgments;  but  in  the  meantime,  it  must  be 
agreed,  you  make  a  very  indifferent  figure.  And  it  is  at  least 
equally  ridiculous  to  be  disappointed  in  endeavoring  to 
make  other  folks  grieve  as  to  make  them  laugh. 

A  plain  convincing  reason  may  possibly  operate  upon  the 
mind  both  of  a  learned  and  ignorant  hearer  as  long  as  they 
live,  and  will  edify  a  thousand  times  more  than  the  art  of 
wetting  the  handkerchiefs  of  a  whole  congregation,  if  you 
were  sure  to  attain  it. 

If  your  arguments  be  strong,  in  God's  name  offer  them  in 
as  moving  a  manner  as  the  nature  of  the  subject  will  properly 
admit,  wherein  reason  and  good  advice  will  be  your  safest 
guides.  But  beware  of  letting  the  pathetic  part  swallow  up 
the  rational;  for,  I  suppose,  philosophers  have  long  agreed 
that  passion  should  never  prevail  over  reason. 


l68  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

As  I  take  it,  the  two  principal  branches  of  preaching  are 
first  to  tell  the  people  what  is  their  duty,  and  then  to  convince 
them  that  it  is  so.  The  topics  for  both  these,  we  know,  are 
brought  from  Scripture  and  reason.  Upon  this  first,  I 
wish  it  were  often  practised  to  instruct  the  hearers  in  the 
limits,  extent,  and  compass  of  every  duty,  which  requires 
a  good  deal  of  skill  and  judgment;  the  other  branch  is,  I 
think,  not  so  difficult.  But  what  I  would  offer  them  both  is 
this :  that  it  seems  to  be  in  the  power  of  a  reasonable  clergy- 
man, if  he  will  be  at  the  pains,  to  make  the  most  ignorant 
man  comprehend  what  is  his  duty,  and  to  convince  him  by 
argument  drawn  to  the  level  of  his  understanding  that  he 
ought  to  perform  it. 

But  I  must  remember  that  my  design  in  this  paper  was 
not  so  much  to  instruct  you  in  your  business  either  as  a 
clergyman  or  a  preacher  as  to  warn  you  against  some  mis- 
takes which  are  obvious  to  the  generality  of  mankind  as 
well  as  to  me;  and  we  who  are  hearers  may  be  allowed 
to  have  some  opportunities  in  the  quality  of  being  standers- 
by.  Only  perhaps  I  may  now  again  transgress  by  desiring 
you  to  express  the  heads  of  your  divisions  in  as  few  and 
clear  words  as  you  possibly  can;  otherwise  I  and  many 
thousand  others  will  never  be  able  to  retain  them,  nor  con- 
sequently to  carry  away  a  syllable  of  the  sermon. 

'  Lucius  Cary,  Viscount  Falkland  (i6io?-i643),  a  royalist  and  a  member 
of  the  Long  Parliament,  was  killed  at  the  first  battle  of  Newbury.  Dying 
prematurely,  he  was  already  known  as  a  patron  of  letters  and  as  himself  a 
rare  scholar  and  a  writer  of  ability. 

^  At  that  time  a  retreat  for  sharpers. 

^  We  still  say  "bitten  by  a  swindler." 

■•  and  ".     In  these  sentences,  are  the  "proix'r  words  in  proper  places"? 

'  Epiphonema :  "  A  striking  reflection  or  an  exclamatory  sentence  summing 
up  a  discourse,  or  a  passage  in  a  discourse"  {Standard  Dictionary);  see  also 
Demetrius  on  Style,  ed.  Roberts,  p.  281. 


BUFFON  169 


VI 

BUFFON  (i 707-1 788) 
"  Discours  sur  le  Style  "    (1753) 

[Translated  from  CEuvres  ComplUes  de  Buffon,  Paris,  1824,  Vol.  i  (pp. 
cxlix-clxi). 

It  may  be  that  the  seeming  inflation  in  Buffon's  address 
is  due  to  the  usage  of  the  Academy  on  such  occasions;  in  the 
eighteenth  century,  grandiloquence  was  expected  from  the 
newly  elected  member.  Nevertheless  the  author,  as  will  be 
observed,  merely  announces  that  he  will  propound  "  some 
ideas  on  style."  The  address  appears  to  have  received  the 
more  ambitious  title  of  Discours  sur  le  Style  from  the 
Encyclopedist  F.  M.  Grimm.     It  was  dehvered  on  August 

25»   1753- 
On  Buffon  and  his  Discours,  see  Petit  de  JuUeville,  His- 

toire  de  la  Langue  et  de  la  LiUerature  Frangaise,  Vol.  6,  pp. 
240-249  ( V.  —  Buffon  ecrivain  et  theoricien  du  style,  by  Felix 
Hemon);  E.  Geruzez,  Essais  de  Litterature  Frangaise,  Vol. 
2,  pp.  498-518  (Bufjon);  A.  F.  Villemain,  Tableau  de  la 
Litterature  Frangaise  au  XVIIF  Siecle,  Paris,  1868  (Vol.  2, 
pp.  200-217,  Vingt  Deuxieme  Legon,  Buffon,  — esp.  pp.  208- 
212);  P.  Flourens,  Travaux  et  Idees  de  Buffon,  Paris,  1870 
(Style  de  Buffon,  pp.  317-320).  Buffon's  Discours  is  in  de- 
mand as  a  text  in  the  secondary  schools  of  France;  probably 
the  best  of  the  school  editions  is  that  by  Rene  Nollet,  Paris, 
Hachette,  1905. 

Among  the  literary  curiosities  connected  with  Buffon's 
celebrated  epigram,  "  the  style  is  the  man  himself,"  is  a  story. 
El  Estilo  es  el  Hombre,  by  Antonio  de  Trueba  (in  Coleccion 
de  Autores  Espanoles,  Vol.  18,  Cuentos  Campesinos,  Leipsic, 
Brockhaus).  The  story  has  been  translated  (The  Style  is 
the  Man)  by  Professor  T.  F.  Crane,  in  the  Cornell  Review 
(Vol.  6,  pp.  68-79;    122-134).] 


I/O  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

AN  ADDRESS  DELIVERED  BEFORE  THE  FRENCH 
ACADEMY 

BY  M.  DE  BUFFON 

UPON  THE    DAY    OF   HIS    RECEPTION 

Gentlemen,  in  calling  me  to  join  your  number  you  have 
bestowed  on  me  a  great  honor;  yet  glory  is  a  good  only  in  so 
far  as  the  recipient  is  worthy  of  it,  and  I  am  not  convinced  that 
certain  essays  written  without  art,  and  devoid  of  other  orna- 
ment than  nature's  own,  are  adequate  title  to  make  me  dare 
assume  a  place  among  the  masters  of  art  —  among  the  emi- 
nent men  ^  who  here  represent  the  hterary  splendor  of  France, 
and  whose  names,  celebrated  to-day  among  the  nations, 
will  resound  on  the  lips  of  our  remotest  posterity.  Gentle- 
men, in  fixing  your  choice  on  me  you  have  had  other 
motives :  you  have  wished  to  give  the  illustrious  body  to  which 
I  have  for  many  years  had  the  honor  of  belonging  ^  a  new 
mark  of  respect.  Though  shared  by  others,  my  gratitude 
is  not  the  less  hvely.  Yet  how  shall  I  fulfil  the  duty  which  it 
lays  on  me  to-day?  I  have  nothing  to  offer  you.  Gentlemen, 
but  what  is  yours  already:  some  ideas  on  Style,  which  I  have 
gathered  from  your  works  —  which  I  have  conceived  in 
reading  and  admiring  you.  Submitted  to  your  intelligence, 
they  will  not  fail  of  proper  recognition. 

In  all  times  there  have  been  men  with  the  ability  to  rule 
their  fellows  by  the  power  of  speech.  Yet  only  in  enlightened 
times  have  men  written  and  spoken  well.  True  diSquence 
supposes  the  exerci^e-of  genius,  and  j^xuUiyat^mind.  It  is 
far  different  from  that  naturaTfaolity  in  speaking  which  is 
simply  a  talent,  a  gift  accorded  those  whose  passions  are 
strong,  whose  voices  are  fejoble,  whtSse^lrfiaginations-afe  nat- 
jjjalLy-qttixrk.     Such  men  perceive  vividly,  are  affected  vividly. 


BUFFON  171 

and  display  their  emotions  with  force;  and  by  an  impression 
purely  mechanical  they  transmit  their  own  enthusiasm  and 
feelings  to  others.  It  is  body  speaking  to  body;  all  move- 
ments and  all  gestures  combine  equally  for  service.  What, 
indeed,  is  rec^uisite  in  order  to  arouse  and  draw  on  the  crowd  ? 
What  do  we  need  if  we  would  agitate  and  persuade  even  the 
more  intelligent  ?  A  vehement  and  affecting  tone,  expressive 
and  frequent  gestures,  rapid  and  ringing  words.  But 
for  the  hmited  number  of  those  whose  heads  are  steady, 
whose  taste  is  dehcate,  whose  sense  is  refined,  and  who, 
like  you.  Gentlemen,  set  little  value  on  cadence,  gestures,  and 
the  empty  sound  of  words,  one  must  have  substance,  thoughts, 
arguments;  and  one  must  know  how  to  present  them  and 
shade  them  and  arrange  them.  It  is  not  enough  to  strike 
the  ear  and  hold  the  eye;  one  must  work  on  the  soul,  and 
touch  the  sensibihties  by  addressing  the  mind. 

Style  is  simply  the  order  and  movement  one  gives  to  one's 
thoughts.  If  these  are  connected  closely,  and  rigorously 
compressed,  the  style  will  be  firm,  nervous,  and  concise.  If 
they  are  allowed  to  follow  one  another  loosely  and  merely  at 
the  lead  of  the  diction,  however  choice  this  be,  the  style 
will  be  diffuse,  nerveless,  and  languid. 

However,  before  seeking  the  particular  order  in  which 
actually  to  present  his  thoughts,  the  writer  must  first  form 
another  more  general  and  more  absolute  order,  where  only 
primary  aspects  and  fundamental  ideas  shall  enter.  It  is 
in  fixing  their  places  in  this  prior  plan  that  he  sees  his  subject 
growing  circumscribed,  and  comes  to  realize  its  true  extent; 
and  it  is  by  keeping  these  first  outlines  continually  before 
him  that  he  is  able  to  determine  the  proper  intervals  between 
the  main  ideas,  and  develops  the  accessory  and  intermediary 
ideas  that  shall  serve  to  fill  in.  By  sheer  force  of  genius  he 
will  grasp  the  sum  of  these  general  and  particular  ideas  in 


1/2  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

their  true  perspective;  by  a  great  delicacy  of  discernment  he 
will  distinguish  thoughts  that  are  fertile  from  such  as  are 
sterile;  by  a  sagacity  born  of  long  experience  in  writing  he 
will  perceive  in  advance  the  ultimate  result  of  all  these  men- 
tal operations.  If  a  subject  be  at  all  vast  or  complex,  very 
seldom  can  it  be  taken  in  at  a  glance,  or  penetrated  in  its 
entirety  by  a  single  and  initial  effort  of  genius;  and  seldom 
even  after  much  reflection  will  all  its  relations  be  compre- 
hended. Accordingly,  one  cannot  give  this  matter  too  much 
attention;  it  is,  indeed,  the  sole  way  to  consoHdate,  develop, 
and  elevate  one's  thoughts.  The  more  substance  and  force 
they  receive  through  meditation,  the  more  easily  will  they 
afterward  pass  into  concrete  expression. 

This  plan,  though  not  the  resultant  style,  is  nevertheless 
its  basis,  supporting  it,  directing  it,  regulating  its  movement, 
subjecting  it  to  law.  Without  that  basis  the  best  of  writers 
will  wander;  his  pen  running  on  unguided  will  form  hap- 
hazard, irregular  strokes  and  incongruous  figures.  How- 
ever brilHant  the  colors  he  employs,  whatever  the  beauties 
of  detail  he  introduces,  since  the  ensemble  jars  or  else  makes 
no  adequate  impression,  the  work  will  not  really  be  a  con- 
struction; hence,  though  admiring  the  brilliancy  of  the  author, 
we  may  suspect  him  of  lacking  true  genius.^  Here  is  the  rea- 
son why  those  who  write  as  they  speak,  though  they  may  speak 
excellently,  write  badly;  that  those  who  abandon  themselves 
to  the  first  flashes  of  their  imagination  assume  a  tone  which 
they  cannot  sustain ;  that  those  who  are  in  fear  of  losing  their 
isolated  and  fugitive  thoughts  and  who  at  separate  times  write 
in  detached  fragments,  cannot  unite  these  save  by  forced 
transitions;  that,  in  a  word,  there  arc  so  many  works  made  up 
by  assemblage  of  pieces,  and  so  few  cast  in  a  single  mould. 
Every  subject,  however,  is  a  unit  and,  no  matter  how 
vast  it  be,  can  be  comprised  in  a  single  treatise;   hence,  in- 


BUFl'ON  173 

terruptions,  pauses,  sections,  and  the  like,  should  be  employed 
only  when  different  subjects  are  under  consideration,  or 
when,  having  to  discuss  great,  thorny,  and  disparate  questions, 
genius  finds  its  march  broken  by  a  multiplicity  of  obstacles 
and  is  constrained  by  the  force  of  circumstances.*  Other- 
wise a  great  number  of  divisions,  far  from  rendering  a  work 
more  solid,  destroys  its  coherence.  To  the  eye  the  book  seems 
clearer;  but  the  author's  design  remains  obscure.  You  can- 
not make  an  impression  on  your  reader's  mind,  or  even  on  his 
feelings,  but  by  continuity  of  the  thread,  by  harmonious 
interdependence  of  the  ideas,  by  a  successive  development,  a 
sustained  gradation,  a  uniform  movement,  which  every  inter- 
ruption enfeebles  or  destroys. 

Why  is  it  that  the  works  of  nature  are  so  perfect  ?  Be- 
cause each  work  is  a  whole,  and  because  nature  follows  an 
eternal  plan  from  which  she  never  departs.  She  prepares  in 
silence  the  germs  of  her  productions.  She  sketches  the  orig- 
inal form  of  each  living  being  in  a  single  effort.  This  form 
she  develops  and  perfects  by  a  continuous  movement  and  in  a 
time  prescribed.  The  result  is  wonderful;  yet  what  should 
strike  us  is  the  divine  imprint  that  it  bears.  The  human 
spirit  can  create  nothing,  nor  can  it  bring  forth  at  all  until 
fertilized  by  experience  and  meditation;  in  its  acquired 
knowledge  lie  the  germs  of  its  productions.  But  if  it  imitates 
nature  in  its  procedure  and  labor;  if  it  exalts  itself  by  con- 
templation to  the  sublimest  truths;  if  it  unites  these;  if 
it  forms  of  them  an  entirety  systematized  by  reflection:  it 
will  build  upon  unshakable  foundations  monuments  that  can- 
not pass  away. 

It  is  for  want  of  plan,  for  want  of  sufficient  preliminary 

*  In  what  I  said  here  I  had  in  mind  [Montesquieu's]  V Esprit  des  Lois, 
in  its  substance  an  excellent  work,  and  to  be  criticised  solely  on  the  score  of 
its  too  frequent  sections. 


174  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

reflection  on  his  subject,  that  a  man  of  intelhgence  finds 
himself  embarrassed  with  uncertainty  at  what  point  to  begin 
writing.  Ideas  come  to  him  from  many  directions  at  a  time; 
and  since  he  has  neither  compared  nor  subordinated  them, 
nothing  determines  him  to  prefer  one  set  to  another;  hence 
he  remains  perplexed.  When,  however,  he  has  made  a 
plan,  when  he  has  collected  and  put  in  order  all  the  es- 
sential thoughts  on  his  subject,  he  recognizes  without  dif- 
ficulty the  instant  when  he  ought  to  take  up  his  pen;  he  is 
aware  of  the  critical  point  when  his  mind  is  ready  to  bring 
forth;  it  is  urgent  with  him  to  come  to  the  birth;  nay,  he  has 
now  only  pleasure  in  writing:  his  ideas  follow  one  another 
easily,  and  the  style  is  natural  and  smooth.  A  certain 
warmth  born  of  that  pleasure  diffuses  itself  throughout, 
giving  life  to  every  phrase;  there  is  a  gradual  increase  of  ani- 
mation; the  tone  grows  elevated;  individual  objects  take  on 
color;  and  a  glow  of  feeling  joins  with  the  light  of  intellect 
to  increase  it  and  carry  it  on,  making  it  spread  from  what  one 
is  saying  to  what  one  is  about  to  say ;  and  the  style  becomes 
interesting  and  luminous. 

Nothing  is  more  inimical  to  this  warmth  than  the  desire 
to  be  everywhere  striking;  nothing  is  more  contrary  to  the 
light  which  should  be  at  the  centre  of  a  work,  and  which 
should  be  diffused  uniformly  in  any  composition,  than  those 
sparks  which  are  struck  only  at  the  cost  of  a  violent  collision 
between  words,  and  which  dazzle  us  for  a  moment  or  two, 
only  to  leave  us  in  subsequent  darkness.*  These  are  thoughts 
that  shine  only  by  contrast,  when  but  one  aspect  of  an  object 
is  presented,  while  the  remaining  sides  are  put  in  shadow; 
and  ordinarily  the  aspect  chosen  is  a  point  or  angle  whereon 
the  writer  exercises  his  wit  with  the  greater  ease  in  propor- 
tion as  he  departs  farther  from  the  important  sides  on  which 
good  common  sense  is  accustomed  to  view  things. 


BUFFON  175 

Again,  nothing  is  more  oi)posed  to  true  eloquence  than  the 
employment  of  superfine  thoughts  and  the  anxious  search  for 
such  ideas  as  arc  slender,  delicate,  and  without  substance; 
ideas  that,  like  leaves  of  beaten  metal,  acquire  brilliancy 
only  as  they  lose  solidity.  The  more  of  this  attenuated  and 
shining  wit  there  is  in  a  composition,  the  less  will  there 
be  of  muscle,  real  illumination,  warmth,  and  style;  unless 
perchance  this  wit  is  the  mainspring  of  the  subject,  and  the 
writer  has  no  other  purpose  than  mere  pleasantry.  In  that 
case  the  art  of  saying  trifles  will  be  found  more  difficult,  per- 
haps, than  that  of  saying  things  substantial. 

Nothing  is  more  opposed  to  the  beauty  of  naturalness  than 
the  pains  people  take  to  express  ordinary,  every-day  matters 
with  an  air  of  singularity  or  pretence;  nor  is  there  anything 
more  degrading  to  the  writer.  Far  from  admiring  him  for  this, 
we  may  pity  him  for  having  spent  so  much  time  in  mak- 
ing new  combinations  of  syllables,  merely  to  say  what  every- 
body else  has  said  already.  This  is  the  fault  of  minds  that 
are  cultivated  but  sterile;  they  have  words  in  abundance  but 
no  ideas.  Accordingly  they  juggle  with  diction,  and  fancy 
that  they  have  put  together  ideas,  because  they  have  been 
arranging  phrases,  and  that  they  have  refined  the  language, 
when  they  have  really  corrupted  it  by  warping  the  accepted 
forms.  Such  writers  have  no  style;  or,  if  you  wish,  they  have 
only  its  shadow.  A  style  ought  to  mean  the  engraving  of 
thoughts;   whereas  they  only  know  how  to  trace  out  words.'^ 

To  write  well,  then,  an  author  must  be  in  full  possession 
of  his  subject;  he  must  reflect  on  it  enough  to  see  clearly  the 
order  of  his  thoughts,  and  to  put  them  in  proper  sequence  — 
in  a  continuous  chain,  each  of  whose  links  represents  a  unified 
idea;  and  when  he  has  taken  up  his  pen,  he  must  direct  it 
successively  from  one  main  point  to  the  next,  not  letting  it 
stray  therefrom,  nor  yet  allowing  it  to  dwell  immoderately 


176  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

on  any,  nor,  in  fact,  giving  it  other  movement  than  that  de- 
termined by  the  space  to  be  traversed.  Herein  consists  the 
rigor  of  style;  and  herein  lies  that  which  gives  it  unity  and 
regulates  its  speed.  It  is  this,  too,  and  this  alone,  which  suf- 
fices to  render  a  style  precise  and  simple,  even  and  clear, 
lively  and  coherent.  If  to  obedience  to  this  principle  —  a 
principle  dictated  by  genius  —  an  author  joins  delicacy  and 
taste,  caution  in  the  choice  of  phraseology,  care  in  the  matter 
of  expressing  things  only  in  the  most  general  terms,"  his  style 
will  have  positive  nobility.  If  he  has,  further,  a  certain  dis- 
trust of  his  first  impulses,  a  contempt  for  what  is  superficially 
brilliant,  and  a  steady  aversion  for  what  is  equivocal  and 
trifling,  his  style  will  be  not  simply  grave,  but  even  majestic. 
In  fine,  if  he  writes  as  he  thinks,  if  he  is  himself  convinced  of 
what  he  wishes  to  prove,  this  good  faith  with  himself,  which 
is  the  foundation  of  propriety  toward  others  and  of  sincerity 
in  style,  will  make  him  accompHsh  his  whole  purpose;  pro- 
vided always  that  his  inner  conviction  is  not  expressed 
with  too  violent  enthusiasm,  and  that  he  shows  throughout 
more  candor  than  confidence  and  more  light  than  heat. 

Gentlemen,  it  is  thus  —  as  it  seems  to  me  when  I  read  you  — 
that  you  would  speak  to  me  for  my  instruction:  my  soul 
eagerly  receiving  such  oracles  of  wisdom  would  fain  take 
flight  and  mount  on  a  level  with  you.  How  vain  the  effort  ! 
Rules,  I  hear  you  add,  can  never  take  the  place  of  genius. 
If  that  be  lacking,  they  are  useless.  To  write  well  —  it  is 
at  once  to  think  deeply,  to  feel  vividly,  and  to  express  clearly; 
it  is  to  have  at  once  intelligence,  sensibility,  and  taste.  Style 
supposes  the  united  exercise  of  all  the  intellectual  faculties. 
Ideas  and  they  alone  are  its  foundation.  Well-sounding 
words  are  a  mere  accessory,  dependent  simply  upon  the  pos- 
session of  an  external  sense.  One  needs  only  to  possess  some- 
thing of  an  ear  for  avoiding  awkwardness  in  sound,  and  to 


Bur-FON  177 

have  trained  and  bcllcrcd  it  by  reading  the  poets  and  orators, 
and  one  is  mechanically  led  to  imitate  poetical  cadence  and 
the  turns  of  oratory.  Now  imitation  never  created  anything; 
hence  this  euphony  of  words  forms  neither  the  basis  nor  the 
tone  of  style.  It  is,  in  fact,  often  found  in  writings  devoid 
of  ideas. 

The  tone,  which  is  simply  an  agreement  of  the  style  with 
the  nature  of  the  subject,  should  never  be  forced,  but  should 
arise  naturally  from  the  very  essence  of  the  material,  depend- 
ing to  a  large  extent  upon  the  generalization  one  has  in 
mind.  If  the  author  rises  to  the  most  inclusive  ideas,  and 
if  his  subject  itself  is  lofty,  his  tone  will  apparently  rise 
to  the  same  height;  and  if  while  sustaining  the  tone  at 
that  altitude  his  genius  proves  copious  enough  to  surround 
each  particular  object  with  a  brilliant  light,  if  the  author  can 
unite  beauty  of  color  with  vigor  of  design,  if  he  can,  in  a  word, 
represent  each  idea  by  a  lively  and  well-defined  image,  and 
make  of  each  sequence  of  ideas  a  picture  that  is  harmonious 
and  energetic,  the  tone  will  be  not  simply  elevated  but  sub- 
lime. Here,  Gentlemen,  the  application  would  avail  more 
than  the  rule,  and  illustration  be  more  instructive  than  pre- 
cept; but  since  I  am  not  permitted  to  cite  the  subhme  pas- 
sages that  have  so  often  transported  me  in  reading  your  works, 
I  am  forced  to  limit  myself  simply  to  reflections.  The  well- 
written  works  are  the  only  ones  that  will  go  down  to  posterity : 
the  amount  of  knowledge  in  a  book,  the  peculiarity  of  the 
facts,  the  novelty  even  of  the  discoveries,  are  not  sure  war- 
rants of  immortality.  If  the  works  that  contain  these  are 
concerned  with  only  minor  objects;  if  they  are  wTitten  with- 
out taste,  without  nobility,  without  inspiration,  they  will 
perish;  since  the  knowledge,  facts,  and  discoveries,  being 
easily  detached,  are  passed  on  to  others,  and  even  gain  intrin- 
sically when   appropriated  by  more  gifted  hands.      These 


178  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

things  are  external  to  the  man;  the  style  is  the  man  himself.^ 
Style,  then,  can  be  neither  detached,  nor  transferred,  nor 
altered  by  time:  if  it  is  elevated,  noble,  sublime,  the  author 
will  be  admired  equally  in  all  ages.  For  it  is  truth  alone  that 
is  permanent,  that  is  even  eternal.  Now  a  beautiful  style 
is  such  in  fact  only  by  the  infinite  number  of  truths  that  it 
presents.  All  the  intellectual  graces  residing  in  it,  all  the 
interdependences  of  which  it  is  composed,  are  truths  not  less 
useful,  and  for  the  human  spirit  possibly  more  precious,  than 
those,  whatsoever  they  be,  that  form  the  core  of  the  subject. 
The  sublime  is  to  be  found  only  in  lofty  subjects.  Poetry, 
history,  and  philosophy  all  deal  with  the  same  material,  and 
a  most  lofty  material,  namely,  man  and  nature.  Philosophy 
describes  and  portrays  nature;  poetry  paints  and  embellishes 
it;  poetry  paints  men  also,  enlarges  them,  intensifies  them, 
creates  heroes  and  divinities.  History  represents  man  only, 
and  represents  him  as  he  is.  Accordingly,  the  tone  of  the 
historian  will  become  sublime  only  when  he  draws  a  picture 
of  the  greatest  men,  when  he  exhibits  the  greatest  actions, 
the  greatest  movements,  and  the  greatest  revolutions;  under 
other  circumstances  it  will  suffice  if  he  be  always  majestic 
and  grave.  The  tone  of  the  philosopher  might  become  sub- 
lime whenever  he  is  to  speak  of  the  laws  of  nature,  of  creatures 
in  general,  of  space,  of  matter,  of  time  and  motion,  of  the 
soul,  of  the  human  intellect,  of  the  sentiments,  and  of  the 
passions;  elsewhere  it  will  suffice  if  he  be  noble  and  elevated. 
But  the  tone  of  the  orator  and  the  poet,  so  soon  as  the  subject 
is  lofty,  should  be  ever  sublime,  because  they  have  the  right 
to  bring  to  the  grandeur  of  their  subject  just  as  much  color, 
as  much  movement,  and  as  much  illusion  as  they  please; 
and  because,  having  at  all  times  to  paint  and  enlarge  the 
objects  of  their  representation,  they  must  at  every  point 
employ  all  the  force  and  display  all  the  extent  of  their  genius. 


BUFF  ON  179 

*  For  example,  Voltaire,  Marivaux,  Montesquieu,  Maupertuis.  Most  of 
the  others  are  now  forgotten;  that,  however,  is  no  sure  ground  for  a  belief 
that  Buffon  is  here  ironical. 

^  The  Royal  Academy  of  Sciences,  to  which  Buffon  had  belonged  since 

1733- 

^  Geruzez  supposes  that  Buffon  is  covertly  thrusting  at  Voltaire.  Com- 
pare below,  p.  191,  notes  24,  25. 

*  Here,  according  to  Geruzez,  Buffon  refers  to  Fontenelle. 
^Compare  Wackernagel's  etymology,  above,  p.   11. 

'  Compare  Aristotle,  above,  p.  68,  and  Brunetiere,  below,  p.  424. 

'  "  Ces  choses  sont  hors  de  I'homme,  le  style  est  I'homme  meme."  Some 
of  the  earlier  editions  read:  "Le  style  est  de  I'homme  meme."  The  ex- 
pression did  not  occur  in  the  original  version  which  Buffon  submitted  to 
President  de  Ruffey.  Its  exact  wording  has  been  a  matter  of  fruitless  dis- 
cussion in  America.  BufTon's  thought  is  perfectly  clear:  whereas  the  sub- 
ject-matter of  a  scientific  treatise,  say,  is  external  to  the  man,  and  would 
exist  whether  the  man  existed  or  not,  the  style,  or  the  order  in  which  the 
man  arranges  his  thoughts  on  the  subject-matter,  springs  from  the  man  him- 
self; the  style  is  so  much  of  the  man  as  exists  in  the  ordering  of  his  thoughts. 
See  M.  Nollet's  edition  of  the  Discours,  p.  22,  and  the  Nation,  Jan.  25,  1906 
("Notes").     Compare  Ben  Jonson,  Timber,  ed.  F.  E.  Schelling,  p.  64, 


l8o  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

VII 

VOLTAIRE  (1694- 1 7 78) 
Style    (1771-1774) 

[Translated  from  Volume  4  of  Voltaire's  Dictionnaire  Philosophique  — 
CEuvres  de  Voltaire,  Paris,  1879,  Vol.  20  (pp.  436-444). 

Voltaire's  "  dictionary  "  article  on  Style  is  made  up  of 
fragments  originally  published  at  widely  different  times, 
Part  I  dating  from  1771  and  1774,  Part  II  having  already 
appeared  in  1745.  A  criticism  of  Voltaire's  habit  of  piecing 
together  his  literary  odds  and  ends  may  be  drawn  from  Buf- 
fon  (see  above,  pp.  172,  179).  There  is  an  enthusiastic  appreci- 
ation of  his  style,  applicable  with  slight  abatement  to  this 
article,  in  Mr.  JohnMorley's  excellent  work  on  Voltaire  (1882, 
pp.  87-91).  A  briefer  article  entitled  Genre  de  Style  in  Vol- 
ume 3  of  the  Dictionnaire  Philosophique  insists  on  practically 
the  same  ideas  as  the  selection  here  translated,  and  contains 
in  some  cases  the  same  illustrations.] 

Part  First 

The  style  of  Balzac's  ^  letters  would  not  have  been  bad 
for  a  funeral  oration ;  and  we  have  various  scraps  of 
physical  science  in  the  manner  of  the  epic  poem  and  the  ode. 
Everything  is  good  in  its  place. 

It  is  not  that  it  does  not  require  a  great  art,  or  rather  a 
very  happy  genius,  to  blend  certain  elements  of  a  majestic 
style  in  the  treatment  of  subjects  demanding  simplicity,  or  to 
introduce  subtle  touches  of  delicacy  in  a  discourse  full  of 
vehemence  and  power.     Such  graces,  however,  are  not  to  be 


VOLTAIRE  l8l 

taught.  They  presuppose  much  genius  and  taste.  It  would 
be  hard  to  give  lessons  in  either. 

It  is  very  strange  that  from  the  time  the  French  first  took  to 
writing  they  did  not  produce  a  single  book  written  in  a  good 
style  until  the  year  1656,  when  the  Provincial  Letters'^ 
appeared.  And  why  was  it  that  no  one  wrote  history  in  a 
fitting  style  prior  to  the  Venetian  Conspiracy  by  the  Abbe  de 
Saint-Real  ? 

How  came  it  that  Pellisson,^  in  his  Memorial  in  behalf  of 
Superintendent  Fouquet,  was  the  first  to  catch  the  true  style 
of  Ciceronian  eloquence  ? 

Nothing  is  rarer  or  more  difficult  than  a  style  appropriate 
to  the  matter  in  hand.^ 

Never  affect  unusual  turns  and  novel  words  in  a  religious 
treatise,  as  did  the  Abbe  Houteville;  do  not  declaim  in  a 
work  on  physics;  avoid  all  trifling  in  mathematics;  avoid 
bombast  and  forced  figures  in  a  legal  plea.  When  a  poor 
female  drunkard,  or  drunkardess,  dies  of  apoplexy,  you 
observe,  "  She  has  joined  the  great  majority."  When  they 
bury  her,  you  aver  that  "  Her  mortal  remains  are  con- 
signed to  the  dust."  If  they  ring  for  her  funeral,  you  hear 
"  a  melancholy  sound  that  is  echoed  to  the  skies."  You  fancy 
that  you  are  imitating  Cicero,  when  in  fact  you  are  aping 
Master  Little- John. 

I  have  often  heard  the  question  raised  whether  in  our  better 
tragedies  the  familiar  style  has  not  crept  in  too  frequently, 
since  it  borders  so  closely  on  the  style  of  simplicity  and  natural- 
ness. 

For  example,  in  Mithridates :  — 

"  My  lord,  you  change  countenance  !  "  * 

That  is  simple,  even  naive.  Placed  where  it  is,  this  half 
verse  has  an  effect  that  is  terrible;    it  has  a   touch  of  the 


1 82  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

sublime.  On  the  other  hand,  the  same  words  when  spoken 
by  Berenice  to  Antiochus  — 

"  Prince,  you  are  troubled  and  change  countenance  "  ' 

are  perfectly  commonplace;  here  we  have  a  transition  rather 
than  a  situation. 
Nothing  could  be  more  simple  than  the  verse:  — 

"  Madam,  I  have  letters  from  the  army."  ^ 

It  is  the  moment  when  Roxane  pronounces  these  words  that 
makes  you  tremble.  This  noble  simplicity  is  very  frequent  in 
Racine,  and  constitutes  one  of  his  chief  beauties. 

Still,  objection  was  raised  to  not  a  few  verses  that  seemed 
merely  famihar:  — 

"That's  enough;  and  what's  Queen  Berenice  doing?  " 

"I  say,  has  any  one  seen  the  King  of  Commagene? 
Does  he  know  that  I  am  waiting?  " 

"  —  I've  run  to  the  Queen's  .  .  . 
He  had  gone  out  when  I  reached  there."® 

"  We  know  that  she  is  charming ;  and  such  lovely  hands 
Seem  to  ask  of  you  the  empire  of  the  race."  * 

"Like  you,  the  more  I  think  of  it,  the  more  I  lose  myself." '"  ' 

"  What,  my  lord  !  The  Sultan  will  see  his  face  again  ?  "  " 

"  And  yet,  to  tell  the  truth, 
Your  love  must  have  long  since  foreseen  it."  ^' 

"  Madam,  once  more,  the  choice  is  yours."  '^ 

"  Acomat,  she  wants  to  have  me  marry  her. 

WeU!"»« 


VOLTAIRE  183 

"  I'm  going  to  leave  you. 

But  I,  I  will  not  leave  you."  " 

"  In  case  I  marry  her,  do  you  believe 
Andromache  will  not  at  heart  be  jealous?  "  *' 

"  You  see  it's  settled;  they  are  going  to  marry."  '' 

"  In  order  to  do  well,  you  should  forestall  him  .  .  ."  '^ 

"  Now  wait. 

No  —  do  you  see  ?  —  it  would  be  useless  to  deny 
it.""» 

People  have  found  in  Racine  a  large  number  of  verses 
similarly  prosaic  and  of  a  familiar  tone  that  belongs  only 
in  comedy.  These,  however,  are  lost  in  the  crowd  of  good 
verses;  they  are,  so  to  speak,  mere  wires  of  baser  metal 
that  serve  to  unite  the  jewels. 

The  elegant  style  is  indispensable,  for  without  it  beauty 
of  sentiment  is  thrown  away;  whereas  by  itself  it  suffices  to 
embellish  the  least  noble  and  least  tragic  sentiments. 

Would  any  one  suppose  it  possible  to  bring  on  the  stage, 
with  an  incestuous  mother  on  the  one  hand  and  a  parricidal 
father  on  the  other,  a  young  girl  in  the  role  of  lover,  who  is  to 
disdain  the  conquest  of  a  gallant  already  successful  with  other 
mistresses  and  to  stake  her  glory  on  triumphing  over  an 
austere  man  who  has  never  loved  anything?  Yet  observe 
what  Aricia  makes  bold  to  say  in  the  midst  of  the  tragic  theme 
of  PhcBdra,  putting  it,  however,  in  verses  so  fascinating  that 
we  have  to  pardon  her  for  the  sentiments  of  a  stock  comic 
coquette  (Act  II,  Scene  i):  — 

"  Phedre  en  vain  s'honorait  des  soupirs  de  Th&ee: 
Pour  moi,  je  suis  plus  fiere,  et  fuis  la  gloire  ais^e 
D'arracher  un  hommage  a  mille  autres  offert, 
Et  d'entrer  dans  un  coeur  dc  toutes  parts  ouvert. 


1 84  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IM  LITERATURE 

Mais  de  faire  flechir  un  courage  inflexible, 

De  porter  la  douleur  dans  une  ame  insensible, 

D'enchainer  un  captif  de  ses  fers  etonne, 

Contre  un  joug  qui  lui  plait  vainement  mutine; 

Cast  la  ce  que  je  veux,  c'est  la  ce  qui  m'irrite, 

Hercule  a  desarmer  coiltait  moins  qu'Hippolyte, 

Et  vaincu  plus  souvent,  at  plus  tot  surmonte, 

Preparait  moins  de  gloire  aux  yeux  qui  I'ont  dompte.  "  * 

These  verses  are  not  tragic,  but  then  not  all  verses 
need  be;  and  if  these  are  without  effect  on  the  stage, 
read  in  the  closet  they  charm  us  merely  by  their  elegance 
of  style. 

Nearly  always  the  things  a  writer  says  are  less  striking 
than  the  way  he  puts  them ;  for  men  in  general  have  much  the 
same  ideas  about  the  matters  that  form  the  stock  in  trade  of 
all.  It  is  the  expression,  the  style,  that  makes  all  the  dif- 
ference. In  the  majority  of  our  plays  their  tissue  is  made 
up  of  declarations  of  love,  cases  of  jealousy,  estrangements, 
reconciliations,  and  the  like;  this  is  true  above  all  of  Racine's, 
for  his  are  built  upon  just  such  slender  framework.  Yet 
how  few  geniuses  have  been  successful  in  reproducing  these 

*  The  stylistic  qualities  which  Voltaire  has  in  mind  seem  impossible  of 
translation.     Here  is  a  somewhat  literal  version  of  Aricia's  "sentiments" :  — 

"  Phaedra's  glory  in  Theseus's  sighs  was  vain; 
As  for  me,  I  am  prouder:   I  renounce  the  easy  prize 
Of  winning  the  homage  a  thousand  others  might  have, 
And  gaining  a  heart  that  is  open  on  every  side. 
But  to  force  an  inflexible  spirit  to  bend, 
To  strike  a  passionless  soul  with  distress, 
To  chain  up  a  captive  whose  shackles  astound  him, 
One  who  vainly  revolts  at  a  yoke  that  he  likes, 
There  is  my  goal  and  the  spur  that  incites  me. 
To  disarm  Hercules  cost  less  than  it  will  to  disarm  Hippolytus; 
And  vanquished  more  often  and  earlier  defeated, 
Hercules  brought  less  glory  to  the  eyes  that  subdued  him." 

—  Ed. 


VOLTAIRE  185 

tints  which  every  writer  has  tried  to  paint  !  True  style  gives 
individuahty  to  the  commonest  things,  strength  to  the  feeblest , 
dignity  to  the  simplest. 

Without  style  there  is  no  possibihty  of  a  single  good  work 
in  any  form  of  eloquence  or  poetry. 

The  great  vice  in  the  style  of  almost  all  our  modem  phi- 
losophers and  anti-philosophers  is  prohxity.  A  noteworthy 
example  is  the  System  0}  Nature.  In  this  obscure  book  there 
are  four  times  too  many  words;  and  it  is  in  part  on  this 
account  that  it  is  so  obscure. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  book  -"  the  author  says  that  man 
is  the  product  of  nature,  that  he  exists  in  nature,  that  he  can- 
not escape  from  nature  even  in  thought,  etc. ;  that  for  a  be- 
ing formed  by  nature  and  circumscribed  by  it  there  exists 
nothing  outside  of  the  great  entirety  of  which  he  is  a  part, 
and  whose  influences  he  is  under;  that  consequently  any 
beings  that  are  supposed  to  be  above  nature  or  separate  from 
it  are  necessarily  pure  chimeras. 

He  then  adds  :  "It  will  never  be  possible  for  us  to  form 
real  ideas  of  them."  But  how  can  any  one  form  an  idea, 
whether  real  or  false,  of  a  chimera,  a  thing  that  has  no 
existence  whatsoever?  The  words  are  futile  and  meaning- 
less, having  no  other  service  than  to  round  out  an  empty 
phrase.  He  continues:  "  ...  you  can  never  form  real 
ideas  of  the  region  these  chimeras  occupy,  nor  of  the  way 
they  act."  But  how  can  chimeras  occupy  a  position  in  space  ? 
How  can  they  have  ways  of  acting  ?  What  in  the  world 
would  a  non-existent  chimera's  way  of  acting  be  ?  The 
moment   you   have  said  chimera,  you   can  go  no  further: 

"  For  the  satiate  mind  the  superfluous  runs  to  waste."  ^' 

"Let  man  learn  the  laws  of  nature; ^^  let  him  submit  to 
those  laws  from  which  nothing  can  release  him ;  let  him  con- 


1 86  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

sent  to  remain  ignorant  of  causes,  since  for  him  they  are 
enshrouded  by  an  unpenetrable  veil." 

Here  the  latter  clause  is  not  at  all  in  sequence  with  the 
preceding ;  on  the  contrary,  the  two  clauses  seem  to  contain  an 
obvious  contradiction.  If  man  learns  the  laws  of  nature  he 
will  know  what  we  generally  understand  as  the  causes  of  phe- 
nomena; hence  these  are  by  no  means  enshrouded  by  a  veil 
to  him  impenetrable.  It  is  a  case  of  an  author's  betrayal 
through  careless  use  of  trite  expressions. 

"  Let  him  endure  without  murmuring  the  decrees  of  a 
universal  force  that  cannot  retrace  its  steps  or  ever  depart 
from  the  rules  which  its  essence  prescribes  to  it." 

Now  what  in  the  world  is  a  force  that  does  not  retrace  its 
steps?  The  steps  of  a  force  !  And  not  content  with  one 
false  image,  he  straightway  proffers  you  another,  if  you  like 
it  better,  namely,  a  rule  prescribed  by  an  essence.  Unfor- 
tunately, almost  all  the  book  is  written  in  this  obscure  and 
diffuse  style. 

"  All  that  human  intelligence  has  gradually  contrived  in 
order  to  change  or  better  its  mode  of  existence  is  but  a  neces- 
sary consequence  of  the  essence  peculiar  to  man  and  of  that  of 
the  beings  which  react  on  him.  All  our  institutions,  our  re- 
flections, our  knowledge,  have  for  their  object  simply  the 
attainment  of  a  happiness  toward  which  our  own  nature  un- 
ceasingly forces  us  to  tend.  All  that  we  do  or  think,  all  that 
we  are  or  shall  be,  is  never  anything  but  a  result  of  what  nature 
has  made  us." 

I  am  not  examining  here  the  substance  of  this  metaphysics; 
I  do  not  inquire  how  our  contrivances  for  changing  our  mode 
of  existence,  etc.,  are  the  necessary  effects  of  an  essence  that 
undergoes  no  change.  I  confine  myself  to  the  style.  All 
that  we  shall  be  is  never  (what  a  solecism  !)  anything  but  a 
result  of  what  nature  has  made  us  (again  what  a  solecism  !).^' 


VOLTAIRE  187 

It  ought  to  read:  will  never  he  anything  but  a  result  oj  the 
laws  of  nature.  Only  he  has  already  said  that  four  times  in 
three  pages. 

It  is  extremely  difficult  to  form  distinct  ideas  of  God  and 
nature;  it  is  perhaps  just  as  difficult  to  acquire  a  good  stylc.^* 

Here  is  a  singular  specimen  of  style,  in  a  harangue  that 
we  heard  in  1745  at  Versailles. 

Address  to  the  King,   delivered  by  M.   Le  Camus,  First 
President  of  the  Court  of  Imposts 
Sire:  — 

Your  Majesty's  conquests  are  so  speedy  that  we  must 
try  to  have  a  care  for  their  acceptance  by  our  descendants 
and  to  temper  the  surprise  these  wonders  will  cause,  for  fear 
that  future  heroes  may  dispense  with  emulating,  and  the 
nations  with  believing  them. 

But  indeed.  Sire,  it  is  no  longer  possible  that  they  will 
doubt,  when  they  read  in  history  how  Your  Majesty  was  seen 
upon  the  field  of  Mars  and  at  the  head  of  his  troops,  himself 
recording  them  upon  a  drum;  for  that  is  to  have  en- 
graved them  forever  in  the  temple  of  memory. 

Remotest  ages  will  know  that  the  Enghsh,  that  enemy  proud 
and  bold,  that  enemy  jealous  of  your  glory,  have  been  forced 
to  take  roundabout  advantage  of  your  victory;  that  their 
alHes  have  been  witnesses  of  their  shame;  and  that  they  have 
one  and  all  rushed  to  the  combat  only  to  immortahze  the 
triumph  of  the  conqueror. 

We  dare  not  tell  Your  Majesty,  in  spite  of  his  great  love 
for  his  people,  that  there  is  but  one  more  secret  whereby  to 
augment  our  joy  —  namely,  to  diminish  his  courage,  and  that 
Heaven  would  sell  us  its  wonders  too  dear  if  it  cost  us 
your  peril  or  that  of  the  young  hero  who  is  our  fondest  hope. 

*  *  *  *  ^ 


l88  theories  of  style  h\  literature 

Part  Second 

On  the  Corruption  of  Style^® 

Notwithstanding  the  models  that  we  have  of  almost  every 
kind,  there  is  general  complaint  that  our  eloquence  has 
become  decadent.  One  of  the  great  defects  of  the  age,  con- 
tributing most  largely  to  this  decadence,  is  the  mixture  of 
styles.  We  authors,  as  it  seems  to  me,  are  not  sufficiently 
given  to  imitating  the  painters,  who  never  think  of  combining 
the  attitudes  of  Callot  with  the  faces  of  Raphael.  Now  and 
then  in  histories,  otherwise  well  written,  and  in  good  dogmatic 
works,  I  observe  a  tendency  to  affect  the  most  famihar  tone 
of  ordinary  conversation.  Somebody  once  upon  a  time  said 
that  we  ought  to  write  as  we  speak.  The  meaning  of  that  law 
is  that  we  should  write  naturally.  In  a  letter  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  tolerate  some  irregularity,  freedom  of  style,  want  of 
correctness,  and  venturesome  pleasantries,  because  letters 
are  usually  written  artlessly,  without  plan,  and  are  in  the 
nature  of  informal  talk.  But  when  we  speak  or  write 
with  consideration,  we  are  bound  to  the  proprieties.  Now 
who,  I  ask,  deserves  more  consideration  than  the  public  ? 

Is  it  permissible  in  works  on  mathematics  to  say  that  "  a 
geometer  who  wants  to  save  his  soul  will  have  to  go  up  to 
heaven  in  a  perpendicular  line";  that  "  vanishing  quantities 
tumble  headforemost  back  to  earth  for  having  wished  to 
rise  too  high";  that  "  a  seed  placed  sprout  downward  sees 
through  the  trick  and  turns  right  side  up";  that  "were 
Saturn  destroyed,  its  fifth  sateUite,  not  its  first,  would  take  its 
place,  because  kings  always  keep  their  heirs  at  a  distance"; 
that  "  a  vacuum  exists  only  in  a  ruined  man's  purse";  that 


VOLTAIRE  189 

"Hercules  was  a  physicist"  and  that  "  a  philosopher  of  such 
energy  was  irresistible"? 

Really  admirable  books  are  infected  with  this  blemish. 
Now  the  cause  of  so  common  a  fault  lies,  I  think,  in  the  re- 
proach that  has  been  long,  and  justly,  laid  upon  authors  for 
their  pedantry:  "  shunning  an  error  they  fall  into  a  vice.""' 
It  has  been  urged  so  repeatedly  upon  our  writers  to  copy  the 
tone  of  good  company  that  the  most  serious  authors  have 
grown  jocose,  and  in  order  to  be  good  company  for  their 
readers,  have  come  to  say  things  that  are  decidedly  bad-man- 
nered. 

Some  have  tried  to  talk  on  science  in  the  way  Voiture  talked 
to  Mademoiselle  Paulct  on  gallantry,  never  reflecting  that 
Voiture  himself  failed  to  get  the  exact  air  of  the  little  species 
of  hterature  in  which  he  is  supposed  to  have  excelled; — -for 
he  often  takes  insincerity  for  delicacy,  and  affectation  for 
naturalness.  The  amusing  is  never  good  in  the  serious  style, 
since  it  never  bears  on  more  than  one  side  of  any  object,  and 
that  not  the  side  to  be  considered:  it  turns  in  nearly  every 
case  on  false  analogies  or  on  ambiguity;  the  result  being  that 
most  professional  wits  have  minds  as  untrustworthy  as  they 
are  superficial. 

In  poetry,  as  it  seems  to  me,  it  is  quite  as  wrong  to  mix  the 
styles  as  in  prose.  Now  the  Marotic  style  has  for  some  time 
been  exerting  an  injurious  influence  on  our  poetry,  through  its 
hodgepodge  of  vulgar  and  elevated,  archaic  and  recent  terms. 
Here,  I  fancy,  is  the  reason  why  we  catch  the  whistle  of 
Rabelais  mingling  in  some  of  our  didactic  poems  with  the 
notes  of  the  Horatian  flute. 

You  must  try  to  speak  French ;  it  sufficed  for  Boileau. 
Let  his  well -governed  style  and  his  justice  of  view 
Be  yournorms;  and  to  ill-nurtured  minds  leave  the  part 
Of  the  teacher  that  imitates  Rabelais's  art. 


190  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

I  confess  that  I  am  shocked  when  I  meet  in  a  serious  epistle 
such  expressions  as  the  following :  — 

"Disjointed  rimers  with  jangling  brains, 
More  bitter  than  aloes  and  colocynth  juice, 
Your  vices  work  mischief.     Folk  of  such  stripe  — 
Ragpickers,  Ostrogoths,  rascals  of  God."" 

—  To  heap  up  words  in  such  a  reckless  pile 
At  once  dishonors  genius  and  style. 

*  Jean-Louis  Guez  de  Balzac  (1597-1654). 
^  By  Pascal. 

'  Paul  Pellisson-Fontanier.  He  had  a  place  in  Voltaire's  Temple  du  GoUt. 
For  a  similarly  favorable  opinion  of  his  style  see  Biographic  Universelle, 
Vol.  32,  pp.  415-416. 

*  Compare  Aristotle,  above,  p.  71. 

*  Racine,  Mithridate,  III,  5.  Fourteen  subsequent  references  are  to  the 
same  author. 

*  Berenice,  I,  4. 
'  Bajazel,  IV,  3. 

*  Berenice,  II,  i,  1.  6;  II,  i,  U.  1-3;  II,  i,  I.  5. 
»  Ibid.,  II,  2. 

Ibid.,  II,  5. 

I.e.  the  slave's  face :  Bajazet,  I,  1. 
Ibid.,  I,  4. 
Ibid.,  II,  I. 
"  Ibid.,  II,  3. 
Ibid.,  II,  5. 
Andromaque,  II,  5. 
Bajazet,  III,  3. 
'  Andromaque,  II,  i. 
'  Bajazet,  III,  3. 

20  "Page  i"  [Voltaire's  note].  Voltaire  refers  to  the  atheistic  work  for- 
merly supposed  to  be  a  posthumous  publication  of  the  Academician  Mira- 
baud,  now  known  to  have  been  written  by  Holbach.  In  1770  Goethe  ex- 
pressed a  similar  distaste  for  this  work. 

^'  Omne  supervacuum  plena  de  pectore  manat :  Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  I.  337. 
^^"Page  2"  [Voltaire's  note]. 

^^  Though  it  is  hardly  a  matter  of  importance,  we  may  observe  that  a  better 
historical  knowledge  of  the  French  language  should  have  prevented  Voltaire's 
second  stricture  on  this  sentence.  His  quibble  cannot  be  adequately  trans- 
lated. 


VOLTAIRE  191 

^  This  much  of  the  article  appeared  in  Part  8  of  the  Questions  sur  Vency- 
clopedie,  1771 ;  the  remainder  was  add'^d  in  1774. 

^^  This  fragment,  originally  part  of  a  private  letter,  was  first  published  in 
1745.  Notes  24  and  25  are  given  for  the  light  they  throw  on  Voltaire's 
method  of  composition. 

^  In  vitium  ducit  culpce  fuga:  Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  1.  31. 

"  Voltaire  quotes,  very  inexactly,  from  some  lines  by  J.  B.  Rousseau 
(Bk.  I,  Epistle  3,  to  Clement  Marot).  Compare  what  he  says  above  of  the 
"Marotic"  style. 


192  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

VIII 

GOETHE  (i 749-1832) 
Simple  Imitation  of  Nature;  Manner;   Style  (1789) 

[Translated  from  the  Hempel  edition  of  Goethe's  Werke,  1877  (Vol.  24, 
ed.  H.  Diintzer,  pp.  525-529);  the  Weimar  edition  (Vol.  47,  1896,  pp.  77- 
83;  p.  409)  contains  no  variant  readings  of  significance. 

The  brief  and  sharp  differentiation  of  EinfacheNachahm- 
ung  der  Natur,  Manier,  Slil  was  among  the  extracts  which 
Goethe  contributed  to  Wicland's  Merkur  in  1788-1789,  on  his 
return  from  Italy  to  Weimar.  In  his  collected  works  (Hempel 
edition)  it  is  printed  as  No.  4  in  Ueber  Italien,  Fragmente 
eines  Tagehuchs  —  a  miscellany  of  observations  on  the  fine 
arts,  including  notes  on  special  topics  in  literature  and  music. 
"  Fragment  "  4,  a  compressed  outline  of  Goethe's  principles 
of  artistic  criticism  at  that  time,  with  obvious  reference  to 
painting,  might  at  first  glance  seem  out  of  place  in  the  present 
group  of  essays  on  style  in  literature.  However,  it  is  intro- 
duced purposely,  partly  on  account  of  its  author,  but  more  for 
the  valuable  light  that  a  sister  art  like  painting  ought,  when 
properly  considered,  to  throw  upon  the  art  of  letters.  Prop- 
erly considered,  the  bearing  of  this  selection  on  literature 
should  not  be  hard  to  discover,  if  we  transfer  in  a  legitimate 
way  the  idea  of  an  imitation  of  nature  with  which  Goethe 
commences.  Goethe  temporarily  limits  his  conception  of 
nature  to  the  inanimate  world  or  to  still  life.  His  imaginary 
painter  is  to  begin  with  an  intense  and  continuous  observa- 
tion of  separate  objects  at  rest.  There  could  be  no  better 
cue  for  the  incipient  writer,  since  there  is  no  safer,  perhaps  no 
other,  method  of  gaining  that  basis  of  faithfulness  and  ac- 
curacy in  looking  and  ascertaining,  which  is  indispensable  for 
such  lower  procedures  as  sim])le  descri])tion  and  explanation, 
not  to  speak  of  any  higher  forms  of  literature.  "  Homer," 
said  Professor  Palmer's  friend  —  in  The  Glory  of  the  Imper- 
ject,  —  "looked  long  at  his  thumb";  this  habit  of  patient  and 


GOETHE  193 

impartial  study,  tliought  the  friend,  was  the  secret  of  Homer's 
ever  fresh  and  vigorous  style. 

Some  such  habit  is  the  secret  in  the  success  of  every  art- 
ist, be  he  painter  or  writer.  Other  appHcations  of  Goethe's 
richly  suggestive  sentences  must  be  left  to  the  teacher's 
imagination;  the  student  must  do  his  own  thinking:  this 
point  may  be  enforced  profitably  by  the  following  quotation 
from  a  recent  work  on  Velazquez  by  M.  Auguste  Break  It 
is  copied  from  the  Nation  for  June  i,  1905:  — 

"  Velazquez  is  a  perfect  example  of  what  dexterity  and 
craftsmanship  ought  to  be  in  a  master,  namely,  the  outcome 
of  severe  and  protracted  study.  The  painter  who,  later  on,  was 
able  to  indicate  with  a  single  touch  —  fleeting  and  decisive  — 
a  belt  buckle,  a  sword  hilt,  the  ribbon  of  a  hoop,  and  the  very 
life  of  a  glance,  began  by  meticulously  elaborating  portraits 
of  pots  and  by  patiently  painting  in  every  hne  of  a  model's 
grimace.  Little  by  httlc,  alone  and  by  himself,  he  acquired 
and  amassed  the  experience  which  is  represented  by  a  single 
trickle  of  paint  in  '  Las  Meninas.'  Never  has  more  audacious 
synthesis  been  produced  by  more  careful  analysis.  This 
might  furnish  a  subject  of  meditation  for  those  young 
'masters'  who  start  by  audacities  which  are  all  the  easier  for 
being  unconscious.  It  is  impossible  to  synthesize,  it  is 
impossible  to  epitomize  (in  painting)  [or  writing]  what  one  has 
not  studied.  If  one  begins  by  the  end,  one  is  in  danger  of 
ending  by  the  beginning ;  and  ij  early  works  that  are  labored 
do  not  imply  future  mastery,  early  works  that  are  masterly  are 
the  manijestatlon  of  an  artist  without  personality.^'  [The 
Nation's  itahcs.] 

The  selection  from  Ueber  Italien  is  aphoristic  and  senten- 
tious, not  lacking  in  grace,  yet  unadorned,  typical  of  Goethe's 
scientific  vein  in  the  treatment  of  line  art.  References  to 
Goethe's  style  are  of  course  very  frequent ;  G.  H.  Lewes's 
Life  and  Works  of  Goethe,  4th  ed.,  1890,  p.  53  (Bk.  II,  Chap. 
II)  may  be  cited.] 

Since  we  shall  have  frequent  use  for  these  words  from  now 
on,  it  will  not  seem  superfluous  to  point  out  exactly  what  we 
mean  by  them.     For,  though  they  have  seen  long  literary 


194  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

service,  and  though  their  meaning  appears  to  be  fixed  through 
their  employment  in  theoretical  works,  still  every  one  uses 
them  for  the  most  part  in  some  particular  sense,  and  with 
more  or  less  definite  connotation  according  as  he  has  a 
sharper  or  feebler  conception  of  what  they  ought  to  express. 

Simple  Imitation  of  Nature 

Suppose  that  an  artist  of  requisite  native  talent,  and  one 
whose  eye  and  hand  had  been  trained  to  a  certain  extent  on 
models,  finally  turning  to  objects  in  nature,  began  faithfully 
and  industriously  to  imitate  her  forms  and  colors  with  ut- 
most accuracy;  suppose  that  he  never  consciously  departed 
from  her,  and  that  he  commenced  and  finished  every  one  of 
his  paintings  in  her  immediate  presence :  such  a  person 
would  always  be  an  artist  worthy  of  consideration,  for  he 
could  not  fail  of  an  extraordinarily  high  grade  of  truth,  and 
his  work  would  necessarily  be  sure,  powerful,  and  rich. 

If  we  reflect  on  these  conditions  carefully,  we  readily  see 
that  a  limited  yet  capable  talent  could  in  this  way  handle 
pleasing,  if  restricted,  subjects. 

Such  subjects  would  have  to  be  easily  and  always  accessible 
— capable  of  being  observed  in  comfort  and  copied  in  repose; 
the  temper  that  is  to  engage  in  such  work  must  be  quiet,  self- 
centred,  and  content  with  a  moderate  satisfaction. 

This  kind  of  imitation  would  accordingly  be  applied  to 
so-called  dead  or  inanimate  objects  by  quiet,  faithful  men  of 
limited  endowment.  In  its  nature  it  does  not  preclude  the 
attainment  of  a  high  perfection. 

Manner 
Commonly,  however,  a  man  will  find  such  procedure  too 
painful  or  else  insufficient.     He  sees  in  many  objects  a  certain 
harmony  which  he  can  put  into  a  picture  only  by  a  sacrifice. 


OOETHE  195 

It  irks  him  to  make  a  mere  letter  for  letter  copy  of  the  a  h  c's 
of  nature ;  he  hits  on  a  way  of  his  own,  invents  for  himself 
a  language  wherewith  to  express  again  after  his  own 
fashion  what  he  has  mentally  conceived,  and  to  give  its 
own  appropriate  form  to  a  subject  that  he  has  often 
repeated,  —  without  having  nature  before  him  every  time 
he  repeats  it,  and  without  even  recalling  the  original 
altogether  vividly. 

Thus  there  is  engendered  a  language  in  which  the  soul  of 
the  speaker  obtains  direct  expression  and  significance.  And 
just  as  notions  about  morals  take  on  a  different  form  and  ar- 
rangement in  the  mind  of  every  one  that  does  his  own  thinking, 
so  will  every  artist  of  this  description  observe,  conceive,  and 
imitate  the  outer  world  differently;  he  will  lay  hold  on  its 
phenomena  more  circumspectly  or  more  readily,  and  he  will 
represent  them  again  more  firmly  or  more  fleetingly. 

We  perceive  that  this  kind  of  imitation  may  be  applied 
most  fitly  in  the  case  of  objects  where  some  large  unity  con- 
tains a  great  number  of  small  subordinate  details.  The 
latter  must  be  sacrificed,  if  a  general  expression  of  the  large 
object  is  to  be  achieved;  as,  for  example,  in  a  landscape  you 
would  miss  the  mark  badly,  were  you  to  lay  punctilious  stress 
upon  the  detail  and  not  rather  cleave  to  the  conception  of  the 
whole. 

Style 

Granted  now  that  through  imitation  of  nature,  through 
striving  to  provide  itself  with  a  general  language,  through 
accurate  and  penetrating  study  of  objects,  art  at  length 
reaches  a  point  where  with  ever  increasing  nicety  it 
learns  to  know  the  properties  of  things  and  the  way  they 
exist;  until,  with  a  sweeping  view  of  images  in  their  due 
order,  it  is  competent  to  bring  various  characteristic  forms 
together  for  unified  imitation:    then  there  arises  style,  the 


196  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

highest  stage  that  art  can  reach,  the  stage  where  art  may  claim 
to  rival  the  loftiest  of  human  endeavors/ 

Simple  imitation  has  its  basis  in  quiet  existence  and  grate- 
ful proximity;  manner  is  the  seizing  of  a  phenomenon  with 
a  facile  and  vigorous  temper;  style  is  founded  upon  the  deep- 
est principles  of  knowledge,  upon  the  very  nature  of  things, 
in  so  far  as  we  can  recognize  this  in  visible  and  tangible  forms. 

The  elaboration  of  what  has  been  said  would  take  up  vol- 
umes, and  as  a  matter  of  fact  there  are  books  in  which  a  good 
deal  about  it  may  be  found;  however,  the  pure  conception  is 
to  be  studied  only  with  reference  to  nature  and  the  works  of 
art.  We  may  add  one  or  two  considerations,  and  shall  have 
occasion  hereafter  to  refer  to  these  pages  whenever  the  dis- 
cussion turns  on  painting  and  sculpture. 

It  is  not  hard  to  see  that  the  three  kinds  of  artistic  pro- 
duction here  distinguished  are  intimately  related  one  to 
another,  and  that  one  can  insensibly  shade  into  the  next. 

Simple  imitation  of  objects  easily  comprehended  (let  us 
take  for  example  fruits  and  flowers)  can  be  carried  to  a  high 
degree  of  excellence.  Naturally,  any  one  who  is  going  to 
represent  roses  will  quickly  recognize  and  distinguish  the 
most  beautiful  and  the  freshest,  seeking  them  out  among  the 
thousands  that  summer  offers  him.  Here,  accordingly,  the  ele- 
ment of  choice  is  already  entering  in,  although  the  artist  has  sup- 
posedly formed  no  rigorous  mental  conception  of  the  beauty 
of  roses.  His  business  is  with  tangible  forms;  the  whole 
thing  is  a  matter  of  various  tone  and  superficial  color.  The 
downy  ])each,  the  delicately  dusted  plum,  the  smooth  apple, 
the  glistening  cherry,  the  brilliant  rose,  the  manifold  pink, 
the  variegated  tulip  —  he  can  have  them  all  before  him  in 
his  studio,  if  he  wishes,  in  their  most  ])erfect  bloom  and  ma- 
turity;  he  can  give  them  the  most  favorable  light;   his  eye 


GOETHE  197 

playing  over  the  brilliant  colors  can  accustom  itself  to  their 
harmony;  every  year  he  can  renew  the  same  objects,  and 
through  quiet,  imitative  observation  of  existence  pure  and 
simple  he  can  recognize  and  appropriate  the  characteristics 
of  these  objects  without  the  effort  of  abstraction:  and  thus 
may  arise  the  miraculous  effects  of  a  Huysum  ^  or  a  Rachel 
Ruisch,^  artists  whose  success  almost  oversteps  the  bounds 
of  possibihty.  It  is  obvious  that  such  an  artist  must  become 
only  the  greater  and  surer  if  to  his  talent  he  adds  a  knowl- 
edge of  botany,  if  he  knows  from  the  root  up  the  influence  of 
the  different  parts  on  the  health  and  growth  of  the  plant,  their 
purposes  and  reciprocal  activities;  if  he  understands  and 
ponders  the  successive  development  of  leaves,  flowers, 
fructification,  fruit,  and  new  germ.  In  that  case  he  will  show 
his  taste  not  merely  in  his  selection  among  phenomena;  but 
he  will  also  at  once  astonish  and  instruct  us  through  the  justice 
in  his  representation  of  particular  qualities.  In  this  sense  you 
could  say  that  he  had  formed  a  style;  for  you  can  readily  see, 
on  the  other  hand,  how  a  master  of  this  sort,  by  not  going  so 
deeply  into  detail,  and  by  striving  to  give  easy  expression  to 
the  obvious  and  brilliant,  would  soon  pass  over  into  manner. 

Simple  imitation,  consequently,  labors,  so  to  speak,  in 
the  outer  court  of  style.  The  more  honestly,  carefully,  purely, 
it  goes  to  work;  the  more  quiet  its  impression  of  what  it 
beholds;  the  more  patiently  it  copies,  the  more  it  acquires 
the  habit  of  supplementary  thought,  that  is,  the  more  it  learns 
to  compare  similarities,  to  distinguish  dissimilarities,  and  to 
subordinate  the  particular  object  under  the  general  concept : 
just  in  that  measure  it  renders  itself  worthier  to  tread  the 
threshold  of  the  veritable  sanctuary. 

If  now  we  consider  manner  we  see  that  this  can  be  in  the 
highest  sense,  and  according  to  the  strictest  value  of  the  word, 
a  medium  between  simple  imitation  and  style.    The  closer 


198  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

this  manner,  after  its  lighter  method,  approaches  true  imi- 
tation; the  more  zealously,  on  the  other  hand,  it  seeks  to 
grasp  and  comprehensibly  to  express  what  is  characteristic  in 
objects;  the  more  firmly  it  unites  both,  by  an  unmixed,  lively, 
vigorous  individuality:  the  higher  and  more  respectable  will 
it  prove.  When  an  artist  of  this  calibre  ceases  holding  to 
nature  and  thinking  on  nature,  he  will  gradually  depart  far- 
ther and  farther  from  the  foundation  of  art.  His  manner  will 
grow  more  shallow  and  insignificant,  the  more  it  departs 
from  simple  imitation  and  from  style. 

We  need  not  here  repeat  that  we  take  the  word  manner  in  a 
good  and  respectful  sense,  and  that  consequently  artists  whose 
works  to  our  thinking  fall  within  the  circle  of  manner  have 
no  ground  of  complaint  against  us.  It  is  simply  of  importance 
for  us  to  give  the  word  style  the  highest  position,  so  as  to  have 
on  hand  an  expression  with  which  to  indicate  the  highest 
stage  that  art  has  reached  and  can  reach.  Indeed,  merely  to 
appreciate  this  stage  is  in  itself  a  great  fehcity,  and  to  con- 
verse about  it  with  intelligent  people,  a  noble  satisfaction; 
such  satisfaction  we  shall  have  many  an  opportunity  to  give 
ourselves  in  what  follows. 

*  Among  the  loftiest  of  human  endeavors  would  be  the  successful  effort  to 
order  aright  the  life  of  an  individual  or  of  a  family ;  or,  still  higher,  the  shap- 
ing of  the  life  of  a  nation.  However,  the  ordering  of  an  individual  life  may 
itself  be  considered  a  work  of  art;  i.e.  an  example  of  "the  skilful  and  sys- 
tematic arrangement  or  adaptation  of  means  for  the  attainment  of  a  desired 
end"  (Standard  Dictionary).  Compare  Professor  Albert  S.  Cook's  address, 
The  Artistic  Ordering  of  Life,  published  by  Crowell. 

^  Jan  van  Huysum  (1682-1749),  of  Amsterdam,  a  Dutch  painter  of  flowers 
and  fruit. 

'  Rachel  Ruisch  (i 664-1 750),  a  painter  of  flowers,  from  The  Hague. 


COLERIDGE  1 99 

IX 

SAMUEL  TAYLOR   COLERIDGE    (i 772-1834) 
On  Style  (1818) 

[  From  Vol.  i  of  Coleridge's  Literary  Remains,  ed.  H.  N.  Coleridge,  1836; 
cf.  The  Complete  Works  0}  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  New  York,  1884,  Vol.  4, 
PP-  337-343- 

This  corresponds  to  Lecture  XIV,  the  last  of  the  "  various, 
rather  than  miscellaneous,"  series  advertised  by  Coleridge 
for  the  winter  and  early  spring  of  1818.  Of  these  lectures, 
says  Dykes  Campbell  {AthencEum,  March  16,  1889),  "  a 
deplorably  scanty  record  is  all  that  remains  to  us.  A  few 
preparatory  notes  of  his  own,  a  few  jottings  taken  down  from 
his  lips  by  friends  who  attended  the  course  —  these,  pieced 
out  with  some  marginalia  on  the  authors  mentioned  in  the 
syllabus,  were  piously  swept  together  by  Mr.  H.  N.  Cole- 
ridge, and  printed  .  .  .  under  the  heading  of  '  Course  of 
Lectures.'  But  the  result  was  necessarily  a  mere  ghost,  not 
even  a  well-articulated  skeleton,  of  what  was  probably  the 
finest  body  of  criticism  ever  produced  by  Coleridge."  In  the 
syllabus  Lecture  XIV  was  announced  thus :  — 

"March  13.  On  the  corruptions  of  the  English  language 
since  the  reign  of  Queen  Anne  in  our  style  of  writing  prose. 
A  few  easy  rules  for  the  attainment  of  a  manly,  unaffected, 
and  pure  language,  in  our  genuine  mother  tongue,  whether 
for  the  purpose  of  writing,  oratory,  or  conversation"  (Works, 
1884,  Vol.  4,  p.  232).  How  inadequately  Coleridge's  actual 
words  and,  above  all,  his  illustrations  are  preserved  in  the 
Literary  Remains,  can  be  gathered  by  a  comparison  of  this 
selection  with  a  fragmentary  report  of  the  same  lecture  — 
entitled  Progressive  Changes  in  English  Prose-Writing  — 
published  by  an  anonymous  "Correspondent"  in  Leigh 
Hunt's  Tatler  for  May  23,  183 1,  and  reprinted  by  Dykes 
Campbell  in  the  Athenaum  for  March  16,  1889  (1889,  Vol.  i, 

PP-  345-346). 

In  the  present  selection  a  standard  text  has  been  supplied 
for  the  passage  quoted  by  Coleridge  from  Chaucer.] 


200  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

I  have,  I  believe,  formerly  observed  with  regard  to  the  char- 
acter of  the  governments  of  the  East,  that  their  tendency  was 
despotic,  that  is,  towards  unity;  whilst  that  of  the  Greek  gov- 
ernments, on  the  other  hand,  leaned  to  the  manifold  and  the 
popular,  the  unity  in  them  being  purely  ideal,  namely  of  all  as 
an  identification  of  the  whole.  In  the  northern  or  Gothic 
nations  the  aim  and  purpose  of  the  government  were  the 
preservation  of  the  rights  and  interests  of  the  individual  in 
conjunction  with  those  of  the  whole.  The  individual  interest 
was  sacred.  In  the  character  and  tendency  of  the  Greek 
and  Gothic  languages  there  is  precisely  the  same  relative 
difference.  In  Greek  the  sentences  are  long,  and  the  struc- 
ture architectural,  so  that  each  part  or  clause  is  insignificant 
when  compared  with  the  whole.  The  result  is  everything, 
the  steps  and  processes  nothing.  But  in  the  Gothic  and, 
generally,  in  what  we  call  the  modern,  languages,  the  struc- 
ture is  short,  simple,  and  complete  in  each  part,  and  the  con- 
nection of  the  parts  with  the  sum  total  of  the  discourse  is 
maintained  by  the  sequency  of  the  logic,  or  the  community 
of  feelings  excited  between  the  writer  and  his  readers.  As  an 
instance  equally  delightful  and  complete,  of  what  may  be 
called  the  Gothic  structure  as  contradistinguished  from  that 
of  the  Greeks,  let  me  cite  a  part  of  our  famous  Chaucer's 
character  of  a  parish  priest  as  he  should  be.  Can  it  ever  be 
quoted  too  often  ? 

"  A  good  man  was  ther  of  religioun, 
And  was  a  poure  persoun  of  a  toun; 
But  riche  he  was  of  hooly  thoght  and  werk; 
He  was  also  a  Icrned  man,  a  clerk, 
That  Crist es  Gospel  trewely  wolde  preche: 
His  parisshens  devoutly  wolde  he  teche. 
Benygnc  he  was,  and  wonder  diligent, 
And  in  adversitee  ful  pacient ; 
And  swich  he  was  y-preved  oftc  sithes. 


COLERIDGE  201 

Ful  looth  were  hym  to  cursen  for  his  tithes, 

But  rather  wolde  he  yeven,  out   of  doute, 

Unto  his  poure  parisshens  aboute, 

Of  his  offryng  and  eek  of  his  substaunce: 

He  koude  in  litel  thyng  have  suffisaunce. 

Wyd  was  his  parisshe,  and  houses  fer  asonder. 

But  he  ne  lafte  nat  for  reyn  ne  thonder, 

In  siknesse  nor  in  meschief  to  visite 

The  ferreste  in  his  parisshe,  muche  and  lite, 

Upon  his  feet,  and  in  his  hand  a  staf. 

This  noble  ensample  to  his  sheepe  he  yaf 

That  firste  he  wroghte  and  afterward  he  taughte 

Out  of  the  gospel  he  tho  wordes  caughte, 

And  this  figure  he  added  eek  therto, 

That  if  gold  ruste  what  shal  iren  doo  ? 


He  sette  nat  his  benefice  to  hyre 

And  leet  his  sheepe  encombred  in  the  myre, 

And  ran  to  Londoun,  unto  Seint  Poules, 

To  seken  hym  a  chaunterie  for  soules ; 

Or  with  a  bretherhed  to  been  withholde, 

But  dwelte  at  hoom  and  kepte  wel  his  folde, 

So  that  the  wolf  ne  made  it  nat  myscarie,  — 

He  was  a  shepherde,  and  noght  a  mercenarie: 

And  though  he  hooly  were  and  vertuous, 

He  was  to  synful  man  nat  despitous, 

Ne  of  his  speche  daungerous  ne  digne, 

But  in  his  techyng  descreet  and  benygne, 

To  drawen  folk  to  hevene  by  fairnesse, 

By  good  ensample,  this  was  his  bisynesse: 

But  it  were  any  persone  obstinat, 

What  so  he  were,  of  heigh  or  lough  estat, 

Hym  wolde  he  snybben  sharply  for  the  nonys. 

A  bettre  preest  I  trowe  that  nowher  noon  ys; 

He  waited  after  no  pompe  and  reverence, 

Ne  maked  him  a  spiced  conscience, 

But  Cristes  loore,  and  his  Apostles  twelve. 

He  taughte,  but  first  he  folwed  it  hym  selve."  • 


UBHARY 

STAT*^  TEACHERS  C-L'F'^E 


202  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Such  change  as  really  took  place  in  the  style  of  our  litera- 
ture after  Chaucer's  time  is  with  difficulty  perceptible,  on  ac- 
count of  the  dearth  of  writers,  during  the  civil  wars  of  the  fif- 
teenth century.  But  the  transition  was  not  very  great;  and 
accordingly  we  find  in  Latimer  and  our  other  venerable 
authors  about  the  time  of  Edward  VI,  as  in  Luther,  the  general 
characteristics  of  the  earhest  manner;  —  that  is,  every  part 
popular,  and  the  discourse  addressed  to  all  degrees  of  intel- 
ctj  — jthe  sentences'  short,  the  tone  vehement,  and  the 
connection  of  the  whole  produced  by  honesty  and  singleness 
of  purpose,  intensity  of  passion,  and  pervading  importance 
of  the  subject. 
— Another  and  a  very  different  species  of  style  is  that  which 


was  derived  from,  and  founded  on,  the  admiration  and  culti- 
vation of  the  classical  writers,  and  which  was  more  exclusively 
addressed  to  the  learned  class  in  society.  I  have  previously 
mentioned  Boccaccio  as  the  original  Italian  introducer  of 
this  manner,  and  the  great  models  of  it  in  English  are 
Hooker,  Bacon,  Milton,  and  Taylor,  although  it  may  be 
traced  in  many  other  authors  of  that  age.  In  all  these 
the  language  is  dignified  but  plain,  genuine  English, 
although  elevated  and  brightened  by  superiority  of  intellect 
in  the  writer.  Individual  words  themselves  are  always  used 
by  them  in  their  precise  meaning,  without  either  affectation 
or  slipslop.  The  letters  and  state  papers  of  Sir  Francis 
Walsingham  are  remarkable  for  excellence  in  style  of  this 
description.  In  Jeremy  Taylor  the  sentences  are  often 
extremely  long,  and  yet  are  generally  so  perspicuous  in 
consequence  of  their  logical  structure,  that  they  require  no 
perusal  to  be  understood;  and  it  is  for  the  most  part  the 
same  in  Milton  and  Hooker. 

Take  the  following  sentence  as  a  specimen  of  the  sort  of 
style  to  which  I  have  been  alluding:  — 


COLERIDGE  203 

"  Concerning  F'aith,  the  principal  object  whereof  is  that  eternal  ver- 
ity which  hath  discovered  the  treasures  of  hidden  wisdom  in  Christ; 
concerning  Hope,  the  highest  object  whereof  is  that  everlasting  goodness 
which  in  Christ  doth  quicken  the  dead ;  concerning  Charity,  the  final 
object  whereof  is  that  incomprehensible  beauty  which  shineth  in  the 
countenance  of  Christ,  the  Son  of  the  living  God :  concerning  these 
virtues,  the  first  of  which  beginning  here  with  a  weak  apprehension  of 
things  not  seen,  endeth  with  the  intuitive  vision  of  God  in  the  world  to 
come;  the  second  beginning  here  with  a  trembling  expectation  of  things 
far  removed,  and  as  yet  but  only  heard  of,  endeth  with  real  and  actual 
fruition  of  that  which  no  tongue  can  express ;  the  third  beginning  here 
with  a  weak  inclination  of  heart  towards  him  unto  whom  we  are  not 
able  to  approach,  endeth  with  endless  union,  the  mystery  whereof  is 
higher  than  the  reach  of  the  thoughts  of  men ;  concerning  that  Faith, 
Hope,  and  Charity,  without  which  there  can  be  no  salvation,  was  there 
ever  any  mention  made  saving  only  in  that  Law  which  God  himself 
hath  from  Heaven  revealed?  There  is  not  in  the  world  a  syllable 
muttered  with  certain  truth  concerning  any  of  these  three,  more  than 
hath  been  supernaturally  received  from  the  mouth  of  the  eternal  God." 

—  Eccles.  Pol.  i.  s.  11  [Bk.  I,  Ch.  11.  6]. 

The  unity  in  these  writers  is  produced  by  the  unity  of  the 
subject,  and  the  perpetual  growth  and  evolution  of  the 
thoughts,  one  generating,  and  explaining,  and  justifying,  the 
place  of  another ;  not  as  it  is  in  Seneca,  where  the  thoughts, 
striking  as  they  are,  are  merely  strung  together  like  beads, 
without  any  causation  or  progression.^  The  words  are  selected 
because  they  are  the  most  appropriate,  regard  being  had  to 
the  dignity  of  the  total  impression,  and  no  merely  big  phrases 
are  used  where  plain  ones  would  have  sufficed,  even  in  the 
most  learned  of  their  works. 

There  is  some  truth  in  a  remark,  which  I  believe  was  made 
by  Sir  Joshua  Reynolds,  that  the  greatest  man  is  he  who  forms 
the  taste  of  a  nation,  and  that  the  next  greatest  is  he  who  cor- 
rupts it.  The  true  classical  style  of  Hooker  and  his  fellows 
was  easily  open  to  corruption;  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne  it  was, 


204  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

wild,  though  a  writer  of  great  genius,  first  effectually  injured 
the  literary  taste  of  the  nation  by  his  introduction  of  learned 
words,  merely  because  they  were  learned.  It  would  be  dif- 
icult  to  describe  Browne  adequately;  exuberant  in  conception 
and  conceit,  dignified,  hyperlatinistic,  a  quiet  and  sublime 
enthusiast;  yet  a  fantast,  a  humorist,  a  brain  with  a  twist; 
'egotistic  like  MonTaigne,  yet  with  a  feeling  heart  and  an  active 
^iriosity,  which,  however,  too  often  degenerates  into  a  hunting 
a^b€r  oddities.  In  his  Hydriotaphia,  and,  indeed,  almost  all 
his  works,  the  entireness  of  his  mental  action  is  very  obser- 
vable; he  metamorphoses  everything,  be,  it  what  it  may,  into 
the  subject  under  consideration.  But  Sir  Thomas  Browne 
(with  all  his  faults  had  a  genuine  idiom;  and  it  is  the  existence 
TjfaiTrndividual  idiom  in  each,  that  makes  the  principal  writers 
'-before  the  Restoration  the  great  patterns  or  integers  of  Enghsh 
style.  In  them  the  precise -intended  meaning  of  a  word  can 
never  be  mistaken;  whereas  in  the  latter  writers,  as  especially 
in  Pope,  the  use  of  words  is  for  the  most  part  purely  arbitrary, 
so  that  the  context  will  rarely  show  the  true  specific  sense, 
but  only  that  something  of  the  sort  is  designed.  A  perusal 
of  the  authorities  cited  by  Johnson  in  his  dictionary  under  any 
leading  word,  will  give  you  a  lively  sense  of  this  declension  in 
etymological  truth  of  expression  in  the  writers  after  the  Res- 
toration, or  perhaps,  strictly,  after  the  middle  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  II. 

The  general  characteristic  of  the  style  of  our  literature  down 
to  the  period  which  I  have  just  mentioned,  was  gravity,  and  in 
Milton  and  some  other  writers  of  his  day  there  are  perceptible 
traces  of  the  sternness  of  republicanism.  Soon  after  the 
Restoration  a  material  change  took  place,  and  the  cause  of 
royalism  was  graced,  sometimes  disgraced,  by  every  shade 
of  lightness  of  manner.  A  free  and  easy  style  was  considered 
as  a  test  of  loyalty,  or  at  all  events,  as  a  badge  of  the  cavalier 


COLERIDGE  205 

party;  you  may  detect  it  occasionally  even  in  Barrow,  who  is, 
however,  in  general  remarkable  for  dignity  and  logical  se- 
quency  of  expression;  but  in  L' Estrange,  Collyer,  and  the 
writers  of  that  class,  this  easy  manner  was  carried  out  to  the 
utmost  extreme  of  slang  and  ribaldry.  Yet  still  the  works, 
even  of  these  last  authors,  have  considerable  merit  in  one  point 
of  view;  their  language  is  level  to  the  understandings  of  all 
men;  it  is  an  actual  transcript  of  the  colloquiahsm  of  the  day, 
and  is  accordingly  full  of  life  and  reality.  Roger  North's 
hfe  of  his  brother,  the  Lord  Keeper,  is  the  most  valuable  speci- 
men of  this  class  of  our  Hterature;  it  is  delightful,  and  much 
beyond  any  other  of  the  writings  of  his  contemporaries. 

From  the  common  opinion  that  the  English  style  attained 
its  greatest  perfection  in  and  about  Queen  Anne's  reign  I 
altogether  dissent ;  ^  not  only  because  it  is  in  one  species  alone 
in  which  it  can  be  pretended  that  the  writers  of  that  age 
excelled  their  predecessors;  but  also  because  the  specimens 
themselves  are  not  equal,  upon  sound  principles  of  judgment, 
to  much  that  had  been  produced  before.  The  classical  struc- 
ture of  Hooker  —  the  impetuous,  thought-agglomerating 
flood  of  Taylor  —  to  these  there  is  no  pretence  of  a  parallel; 
and  for  mere  ease  and  grace,  is  Cowley  inferior  to  Addison, 
being  as  he  is  so  much  more  thoughtful  and  full  of  fancy? 
Cowley,  with  the  omission  of  a  quaintness  here  and  there,  is 
probably  the  best  model  of  style  for  modern  imitation  in  gen- 
eral. Taylor's  periods  have  been  frequently  attempted  by 
his  admirers;  you  may,  perhaps,  just  catch  the  turn  of  a  simile 
or  single  image,  but  to  write  in  the  real  manner  of  Jeremy 
Taylor  would  require  as  mighty  a  mind  as  his.  Many  parts 
of  Algernon  Sidney's  treatises  afford  excellent  exemplars  of 
a  good  modem  practical  style;  and  Dryden  in  his  prose  works 
is  a  still  better  model,  if  you  add  a  stricter  and  purer  gram- 
mar.    It  is,  indeed,  worthy  of  remark  that  all  our  great  poets 


206  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

have  been  good  prose  writers,  as  Chaucer,  Spenser,  Milton; 
and  this  probably  arose  from  their  just  sense  of  metre.  For 
a  true  poet  will  never  confound  verse  and  prose;  whereas  it  is 
almost  characteristic  of  indifferent  prose  writers  that  they 
should  be  constantly  slipping  into  scraps  of  metre.  Swift's 
style  is,  in  its  line,  perfect ;  the  manner  is  a  complete  expres- 
sion of  the  matter,  the  terms  appropriate,  and  the  artifice  con- 
cealed.    It  is  simplicity  in  the  true  sense  of  the  word. 

After  the  Revolution,  the  spirit  of  the  nation  became  much 
more  commercial  than  it  had  been  before ;  a  learned  body,  or 
clerisy,  as  such,  gradually  disappeared,  and  literature  in  gen- 
eral began  to  be  addressed  to  the  common  miscellaneous 
public.  That  public  had  become  accustomed  to,  and  re- 
quired, a  strong  stimulus;  and  to  meet  the  requisitions  of 
the  public  taste,  a  style  was  produced  which  by  combining 
triteness  of  thought  with  singularity  and  excess  of  manner  of 
expression,  was  calculated  at  once  to  soothe  ignorance  and  to 
flatter  vanity.  The  thought  was  carefully  kept  down  to  the 
immediate  apprehension  of  the  commonest  understanding, 
and  the  dress  was  as  anxiously  arranged  for  the  purpose  of 
making  the  thought  appear  something  very  profound.  The 
essence  of  this  style  consisted  in  a  mock  antithesis,  that  is, 
an  opposition  of  mere  sounds,  in  a  rage  for  personification, 
the  abstract  made  animate,  far-fetched  metaphors,  strange 
phrases,  metrical  scraps,  in  everything,  in  short,  but  genuine 
prose.  Style  is,  of  course,  nothing  else  but  the  art  of  convey- 
ing the  meaning  appropriately  and  with  perspicuity,  whatever 
that  meaning  may  be,  and  one  criterion  of  style  is  that  it  shall 
■^^tnot  be  translatable  withouFThjury  to  theme^ting«— -Johnson's 
style 1ia^>leased- many  from  the  very  fault  of  being  perpetually 
I  translaiablt^j  he  creates  an  impression  of  cleverness  by  never 
\  sayjog-any thing  in  a  common  way.  The  best  specimen  of 
this  manner  is  in  Junius,  because  his  antithesis  is 'less  merely 


COLERIDGE  207 

verbal  than  Johnson's.  Gibbon's  manner  is  the  worst  of  all; 
it  has  every  fault  of  which  this  pecuhar  style  is  cajjable. 
Tacitus  is  an  example  of  it  in  Latin;  in  coming  from  Cicero 
you  feel  the  jalsello  immediately. 

In  order  to  form  a  good  style,  the  primary  rule  and  con- 
dition is,  not  to  attempt  to  express  ourselves  in  language  before 
we  thoroughly  know  our  own  meaning:  —  when  a  man  per- 
fectly understands  himself,  appropriate  diction  will  generally 
be  at  his  command  either  in  writing  or  speaking.  In  such 
cases  the  thoughts  and  the  words  are  associated.  In  the  next 
place  preciseness  in  the  use  of  terms  is  required,  and  the  test 
is  whether  you  can  translate  the  phrase  adequately  into  simpler 
terms,  regard  being  had  to  the  feeling  of  the  whole  passage. 
Try  this  upon  Shakespeare,  or  Milton,  and  see  if  you  can  sub- 
stitute other  simpler  words  in  any  given  passage  without  a 
violation  of  the  meaning  or  tone.  The  source  of  bad  writing 
is  the  desire  to  be  something  more  than  a  man  of  sense,  — 
the  straining  to  be  thought  a  genius;  and  it  is  just  the  same 
in  speech-making.  If  men  would  only  say  what  they  have  / 
to  say  in  plain  termsTliow  much  more_elgqiiE5niiey^wmitd  be  ! 
Another  rule  is  to  avoid  converting  mere  abstractions  into 
persons.  I  believe  you  will  very  rarely  find  in  any  great 
writer  before  the  Revolution  the  possessive  case  of  an  inani- 
mate noun  used  in  prose  instead  of  the  dependent  case, as  "the 
watch's  hand,"  for  "the  hand  of  the  watch."  The  possessive 
or  Saxon  genitive  was  confined  to  persons,  or  at  least  to  ani- 
mated subjects.  And  I  cannot  conclude  this  Lecture  with- 
out insisting  on  the  importance  of  accuracy  of  style  as  being 
near  akin  to  veracity  and  truthful  habits  of  mind;  he  who 
thinks  loosely  will  write  loosely,  and,  perhaps,  there  is  some 
moral  inconvenience  in  the  common  forms  of  our  grammars 
which  give  our  children  so  many  obscure  terms  for  material 
distinctions.    Let  me  also  exhort  you  to  careful  examination 


208  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

of  what  you  read,  if  it  be  worth  any  perusal  at  all;  such  an 
examination  will  be  a  safeguard  from  fanaticism,  the  universal 
origin  of  which  is  in  the  contemplation  of  phenomena  without 
investigation  into  their  causes.* 

*  Canterbury  Tales,  Prologue,  11.  477-500;  507-528  (Chaucer,  Globe  Edi- 
tion, 1898,  p.  8). 

^  Compare  Buffon,  above,  p.  174. 

^  Compare  Mr.  Harrison,  below,  pp.  445,  446. 

*  In  his  History  of  Criticism  (see  his  Index),  Professor  Saintsbury  ex- 
presses high  appreciation  of  the  following  note  by  Coleridge  on  the  "  Wonder- 
fulness  of  Prose  " : 

"It  has  just  struck  my  feelings  that  the  Pherecydean  origin  of  prose  being 
granted,  prose  must  have  struck  men  with  greater  admiration  than  poetry. 
In  the  latter  it  was  the  language  of  passion  and  emotion :  it  [was]  what  they 
themselves  spoke  and  heard  in  moments  of  exultation,  indignation,  &c.  But 
to  hear  an  evolving  roll,  or  a  succession  of  leaves,  talk  continually  the  lan- 
guage of  deliberate  reason  in  a  form  of  continued  preconception,  of  a  Z 
already  possessed  when  A  was  being  uttered  —  this  must  have  appeared  god- 
like. I  feel  myself  in  the  same  state,  when  in  the  perusal  of  a  sober,  yet 
elevated  and  harmonious  succession  of  sentences  and  periods,  I  abstract 
my  mind  from  the  particular  passage  and  sympathize  with  the  wonder  of  the 
common  people,  who  say  of  an  eloquent  man:  — 'He  talks  like  a  book.'  " 

—  Coleridge,  Works,  ed.  Shedd,  Vol.  4,  pp.  387-388. 


DE  QUINCE Y  209 

X 

THOMAS   DE   QUINCE Y   (i 785-1859) 
Style,  Part  IV  (1841) 

[De  Quincey's  essay  on  Style,  in  four  successive  papers, 
was  first  published  in  Blackwood'' s  Magazine  for  July,  Septem- 
ber, and  October,  1840,  and  February,  1841,  was  reprinted  in 
Volume  1 1  of  De  Quincey's  Collective  Writings,  and  may  be 
found  in  Volume  10  of  the  standard  edition  of  his  Works 
by  Professor  Masson,  London,  Black,  1897  (pp.  134-245). 
Together  with  the  same  author's  essays  on  Rhetoric  and  Lan- 
guage, it  has  been  edited  by  Professor  F.  N.  Scott  (Boston, 
Allyn  ^  Bacon,  1893)  in  a  fashion  that  leaves  little  to  be  de- 
sired. The  student  who  wishes  a  critical  apparatus  must  be 
referred  to  the  excellent  materials  collected  by  Professor 
Scott,  for,  on  account  of  the  bulk  and  discursiveness  of 
De  Quincey's  essay  itself,  an  extended  commentary,  even  on 
Part  IV,  is  out  of  the  question  here. 

In  spite  of  its  unrestrained  digressions,  this  essay  re- 
mains one  of  the  notable  modern  contributions  on  the  subject 
of  literary  style,  full  of  brilliant  suggestion,  and,  if  not  in  itself 
either  systematic  or  painfully  exact,  yet  stimulating  to  further, 
scientific,  research.  It  is  stimulating  in  part  through  its 
incompleteness.  For  the  long,  heterogeneous  preamble  mak- 
ing up  the  first  three  papers  in  Blackwood  seems  to  have  been 
intended  as  preparatory  to  a  discussion  decidedly  more  ex- 
tensive than  the  rather  hastily  concluded  Part  IV,  in  which 
De  Quincey  brings  together  his  results. 

Although  the  Opium-Eater  is  often  at  the  mercy  of  his 
own  habitual  mannerisms,  no  English  writer  of  a  recent  period 
has  received  more  praise  simply  on  the  score  of  style.  Out  of 
a  considerable  literature  touching  on  his  style  or  dealing  with  it 
directly,  may  be  noted:  Minto,  Manual  of  English  Prose  Litera- 
ture; M.  H.Turk,  Selections  from  De  Quincey  (Ginn,  Athenaeum 
Press);  J.  M.  Hart,  Joan  oj  Arc,  The  English  M ail-Coach, 
etc.  (Holt).] 


2IO  THEORIES  OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

"  Such  being  the  slate  oj  preparation,  what  was  the  result?  " 
These  words  concluded  our  last  essay.  There  had  been 
two  manifestations  or  bright  epiphanies  of  the  Grecian  intel- 
lect, revelations  in  two  separate  forms:  the  first  having 
gathered  about  Pericles  in  the  year  444  B.C.,  the  second  about 
Alexander  the  Great  in  t,t,^  b.c;  the  first  being  a  pure  htera- 
ture  of  creative  power,  the  second  in  a  great  measure  of 
reflective  power;  the  first  fitted  to  call  out  the  differences 
of  style,  the  second  to  observe,  classify,  and  discuss  them. 
Under  these  circumstances  of  favorable  preparation,  what 
had  been  the  result?  Where  style  exists  in  strong  coloring 
as  a  practice  or  art,  we  reasonably  expect  that  style  should 
soon  follow  as  a  theory,  as  a  science  explaining  that  art, 
tracing  its  varieties,  and  teaching  its  rules.  To  use  ancient 
distinctions,  where  the  "  rhetor ica  ulens  "  has  been  cultivated 
with  eminent  success  (as  in  early  Greece  it  had)  it  is  but 
natural  to  expect  many  consequent  attempts  at  a  "  rhetorica 
docens.^^  And  especially  it  is  natural  to  do  so  in  a  case  where 
the  theorizing  intellect  had  been  powerfully  awakened. 
What,  therefore,  we  ask  again,  had  been  in  fact  the  result? 

We  must  acknowledge  that  it  had  fallen  far  below  the 
reasonable  standard  of  our  expectations.  Greece,  it  is 
true,  produced  a  long  series  of  works  on  rhetoric,  many  of 
which,  though  not  easily  met  with,*  survive  to  this  day; 
and  one  which  stands  first  in  order  of  time,  viz.  the  great 
work  of  Aristotle,  is  of  such  distinguished  merit  that  some 
eminent  modems  have  not  scrupled  to  rank  it  as  the  very 
foremost  legacy  in  point  of  psychological  knowledge  which 

*  "  Not  easily  met  with  "  :  —  From  Germany  we  have  seen  reprints  of  some 
eight  or  nine ;  but  once  only,  so  far  as  our  bibliography  extends,  were  the 
whole  body  published  collectively.  This  was  at  the  Aldine  press  in  Venice 
more  than  three  centuries  ago.  Such  an  interval,  and  so  solitary  a  publica- 
tion, sufficiently  explain  the  non-familiarity  of  modern  scholars  with  this 
section  of  Greek  literature. 


DE  QUINCEY  211 

Pagan  Literature  has  bequeathed  to  us.  Without  entering 
upon  so  large  a  comparison  as  that,  we  readily  admit  the 
commanding  talent  which  this  work  displays.  But  it  is  under 
an  equivocal  use  of  the  word  "  rhetoric  "  that  the  Rhetoric 
of  Aristotle  could  ever  have  been  classed  with  books  treating 
of  style.  There  is  in  fact  a  complex  distinction  to  which  the 
word  Rhetoric  is  liable,  ist,  it  means  the  rhetorica  utens, 
as  when  we  praise  the  rhetoric  of  Seneca  or  Sir  Thomas 
Browne,  not  meaning  anything  which  they  taught,  but  some- 
thing which  they  practised,  —  not  a  doctrine  which  they 
delivered,  but  a  machinery  of  composition  which  they  em- 
ployed. 2dly,  it  means  the  rhetorica  docens,  as  when  we 
praise  the  Rhetoric  of  Aristotle  or  Hermogenes,  writers  far 
enough  from  being  rhetorical  by  their  own  style  of  writing,* 
but  writers  who  professedly  taught  others  to  be  rhetorical. 
3dly,  the  rhetorica  utens  itself  is  subdivided  into  two  meanings, 
so  wide  apart  that  they  have  very  little  bearing  on  each  other: 
one  being  applied  to  the  art  of  persuasion,  the  dexterous  use 
of  plausible  topics  for  recommending  any  opinion  whatever  to 
the  favor  of  an  audience  (this  is  the  Grecian  sense  univer- 
sally); the  other  being  applied  to  the  art  of  composition, 
the  art  of  treating  any  subject  ornamentally,  gracefully, 
affectingly.  There  is  another  use  of  the  word  rhetoric  dis- 
tinct from  all  these,  and  hitherto,  we  believe,  not  consciously 
noticed;  of  which  at  some  other  time. 

Now,  this  last  subdivision  of  the  word  rhetoric,  viz.  "  Rhet- 
oric considered  as  a  practising  art,  rhetorica  utens,''  —  which 
is  the  sense  exclusively  indicated  by  our  modern  use  of  the 
term,  —  is  not  at  all  concerned  in  the  Rhetoric  of  Aristotle. 
It  is  rhetoric  as  a  mode  of  moral  suasion,  as  a  technical 
system  for  obtaining  a  readiness  in  giving  to  the  false  a 
coloring  of  plausibility,  to  the  doubtful  a  coloring  of  prob- 
abihty,  or  in  giving  to  the  true,  when  it  happens  to  be  ob- 


212  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

scure,  the  benefit  of  a  convincing  exposition,  —  this  it  is 
which  Aristotle  undertakes  to  teach,  and  not  at  all  the  art 
of  ornamental  composition.  In  fact,  it  is  the  whole  body  of 
public  extempore  speakers  whom  he  addresses,  not  the  body 
of  deliberate  writers  in  any  section  whatever.  And,  therefore, 
whilst  conceding  readily  all  the  honor  which  is  claimed  for 
that  great  man's  Rhetoric,  by  this  one  distinction  as  to  what 
it  was  that  he  meant  by  Rhetoric,  we  evade  at  once  all  neces- 
sity for  modifying  our  general  proposition,  —  viz.  that  style 
in  our  modern  sense,  as  a  theory  of  composition,  as  an  art 
of  constructing  sentences  and  weaving  them  into  coherent 
wholes,  was  not  effectually  cultivated  amongst  the  Greeks. 
It  was  not  so  well  understood,  nor  so  distinctly  contemplated 
in  the  light  of  a  separate  accomplishment,  as  afterwards 
among  the  Romans.  And  we  repeat  that  this  result  from 
circumstances  prima  facie  so  favorable  to  the  very  opposite 
result  is  highly  remarkable.  It  is  so  remarkable  that  we  shall 
beg  permission  to  linger  a  little  upon  those  features  in  the 
Greek  Literature  which  most  of  all  might  seem  to  have  war- 
ranted our  expecting  from  Greece  the  very  consummation  of 
this  delicate  art.  For  these  same  features,  which  would 
separately  have  justified  that  expectation,  may  happen,  when 
taken  in  combination  with  others,  to  account  for  its  dis- 
appointment. 

There  is,  then,  amongst  the  earliest  phenomena  of  the 
Greek  Literature,  and  during  its  very  inaugural  period,  one 
which  of  itself  and  singly  furnishes  a  presumption  for  ex- 
pecting an  exquisite  investigation  of  style.  It  lies  in  the  fact 
that  two  out  of  the  three  great  tragic  poets  carried  his  own 
characteristic  quahty  of  style  to  a  morbid  excess,  —  to  such  an 
excess  as  should  force  itself,  and  in  fact  did  force  itself,  into 
popular  notice.  Had  these  poets  all  alike  exhibited  that  sus- 
tained and  equable  tenor  of  tragic  style  which  we  find  in 


DE  QUINCE Y  213 

Sophocles,  it  is  not  probable  that  the  vulgar  attention  would 
have  been  fixed  by  its  character.  Where  a  standard  of 
splendor  is  much  raised,  provided  all  parts  are  simultane- 
ously raised  on  the  same  uniform  scale,  we  know  by  repeated 
experience  in  many  modes  of  display,  whether  in  dress,  in 
architecture,  in  the  embellishment  of  rooms,  &c.,  that  this 
raising  of  the  standard  is  not  perceived  with  much  vivacity, 
and  that  the  feelings  of  the  spectator  are  soon  reconciled  to 
alterations  that  are  harmonized.  It  is  always  by  some  want 
of  uniformity,  some  defect  in  following  out  the  scale,  that  we 
become  roused  to  conscious  observation  of  the  difference  be- 
tween this  and  our  former  standards.  We  exaggerate  these 
differences  in  such  a  case  as  much  as  we  undervalue  them  in  a 
case  where  all  is  symmetrical.  We  might  expect,  therefore, 
beforehand,  that  the  opposite  characteristics  as  to  style  of 
^schylus  and  Euripides  would  force  themselves  upon  the 
notice  of  the  Athenian  populace;  and,  in  fact,  we  learn  from 
the  Greek  scholiasts  on  these  poets  that  this  effect  did  really 
follow.  These  scholiasts,  indeed,  belong  to  a  later  age.  But 
we  know  by  traditions  which  they  have  preserved,  and  we 
know  from  Aristotle  himself,  the  immediate  successor  of  the 
great  tragic  poets  (indirectly  we  know  also  from  the  stormy 
ridicule  of  Aristophanes,  who  may  be  viewed  as  contemporary 
with  those  poets),  that  ^^schylus  was  notorious  to  a  proverb 
amongst  the  very  mob  for  the  stateliness,  pomp,  and  towering 
character  of  his  diction,  whilst  Euripides  was  equally  notorious 
not  merely  for  a  diction  in  a  lower  key,  more  household,  more 
natural,  less  elaborate,  but  also  for  cultivating  such  a  diction 
by  study  and  deliberate  preference.  Having  such  great  models 
of  contrasting  style  to  begin  with,  having  the  attention  con- 
verged upon  these  differences  by  the  furious  merriment  of 
Aristophanes,  less  than  a  Grecian  wit  would  have  felt  a 
challenge  in  all  this  to  the  investigation  of  style,  as  a  great 


214  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

organ  of  difference  between  man  and  man,  between  poet 
and  poet. 

But  there  was  a  more  enduring  reason  in  the  circumstances 
of  Greece  for  entitling  us  to  expect  from  her  the  perfect  theory 
of  style.  It  lay  in  those  accidents  of  time  and  place  which 
obliged  Greece  to  spin  most  of  her  speculations,  like  a  spider, 
out  of  her  own  bowels.  Now,  for  such  a  kind  of  literature 
style  is,  generally  speaking,  paramount;  for  a  literature  less 
self-evolved  style  is  more  liable  to  neglect.  Modem  nations 
have  labored  under  the  very  opposite  disadvantage.  The 
excess  of  external  materials  has  sometimes  oppressed  their 
creative  power,  and  sometimes  their  meditative  power.  The 
exuberance  of  objective  knowledge  —  that  knowledge  which 
carries  the  mind  to  materials  existing  out  of  itself,  such  as  natu- 
ral philosophy,  chemistry,  physiology,  astronomy,  geology, 
where  the  mind  of  the  student  goes  for  little  and  the  external 
object  for  much  —  has  had  the  effect  of  weaning  men  from 
subjective  speculation,  where  the  mind  is  all  in  all  and  the 
alien  object  next  to  nothing,  and  in  that  degree  has  weaned 
them  from  the  culture  of  style.  Now,  on  the  other  hand,  if 
you  suppose  a  man  in  the  situation  of  Baron  Trenck  at  Span- 
dau,  or  Spinoza  in  the  situation  of  Robinson  Crusoe  at  Juan 
Fernandez,  or  a  contemplative  monk  of  the  thirteenth  cen- 
tury in  his  cell,  you  will  perceive  that  —  unless  he  were  a  poor 
feeble-minded  creature  like  Cowper's  Bastille  prisoner,  thrown 
by  utter  want  of  energy  upon  counting  the  very  nails  of  his 
dungeon  in  all  permutations  and  combinations  —  rather  than 
quit  the  external  world,  he  must  in  his  own  defence,  were  it 
only  as  a  relief  from  gnawing  thoughts,  cultivate  some 
subjective  science ;  that  is,  some  branch  of  knowledge  which, 
drawing  everything  from  the  mind  itself,  is  independent  of 
external  resources.  Such  a  science  is  found  in  the  relations 
of  man  to  God,  —  that  is  in  theology ;  in  the  determinations 


DE  QUIA'CEY  21$ 

of  space,  —  that  is  in  geometry;  in  the  relations  of  existence 
or  being  universally  to  the  human  mind,  —  otherwise  called 
metaphysics  or  ontology ;  in  the  relations  of  the  mind  to  itself, 
—  otherwise  called  logic.  Hence  it  was  that  the  scholastic 
philosophy  evolved  itself,  like  a  vast  spider's  loom,  between 
the  years  iioo  and  1400.  Men  shut  up  in  solitude,  with  the 
education  oftentimes  of  scholars,  with  a  life  of  leisure,  but 
with  hardly  any  books,  and  no  means  of  observation,  were 
absolutely  forced,  if  they  would  avoid  lunacy  from  energies 
unoccupied  with  any  object,  to  create  an  object  out  of  those 
very  energies :  they  were  driven  by  mere  pressure  of  solitude, 
and  som.etimes  of  eternal  silence,  into  raising  vast  aerial 
Jacob's  ladders  of  vapory  metaphysics,  just  as  endless  as 
those  meteorologic  phenomena  which  technically  bear  that 
name,  just  as  sublime  and  aspiring  in  their  tendency  upwards, 
and  sometimes  (but  not  always)  just  as  unsubstantial.  In 
this  present  world  of  the  practical  and  the  ponderable,  we  so 
litlle  understand  or  value  such  abstractions,  though  once  our 
British  schoolmen  took  the  lead  in  these  subtleties,  that  we 
confound  their  very  natures  and  names.  Most  people  with  us 
mean  by  metaphysics  what  is  properly  called  psychology. 
Now,  these  two  are  so  far  from  being  the  same  thing  that  the 
former  could  be  pursued  (and,  to  say  the  truth,  was,  in  fact, 
under  Aristotle  created)  by  the  monk  in  his  unfurnished  cell, 
where  nothing  ever  entered  but  moonbeams.  Whereas  psy- 
chology is  but  in  part  a  subjective  science ;  in  some  proportion 
it  is  also  objective,  depending  on  multiplied  experience,  or 
on  multiplied  records  of  experience.  Psychology,  therefore, 
could  not  have  been  cultivated  extensively  by  the  schoolmen, 
and  in  fact  would  not  have  been  cultivated  at  all  but  for  the 
precedent  of  Aristotle.  He,  who  laid  the  foundation  of  their 
metaphysics,  which  have  nothing  to  do  with  man,  had  also 
written  a  work  on  man,  —  viz.  on  the  human  soul,  —  besides 


2l6  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Other  smaller  works  on  particular  psychological  phenomena 
(such  as  dreaming).  Hence,  through  mere  imitation,  arose 
the  short  sketches  of  psychology  amongst  the  schoolmen. 
Else  their  vocation  lay  to  metaphysics,  as  a  science  which  can 
dance  upon  moonbeams;  and  that  vocation  arose  entirely 
out  of  their  circumstances,  —  solitude,  scholarship,  and  no 
books.  Total  extinction  there  was  for  them  of  all  objective 
materials,  and  therefore,  as  a  consequence  inevitable,  rehance 
on  the  solitary  energies  of  their  own  minds.  Like  Christa- 
bel's  chamber  lamp,  and  the  angels  from  which  it  was  sus- 
pended, all  was  the  invention  of  the  unprompted  artist,  — 

"All  made  out  of  the  carver's  brain." 

Models  he  had  none  before  him,  for  printed  books  were  yet 
sleeping  in  futurity,  and  the  gates  of  a  grand  asceticism  were 
closed  upon  the  world  of  life.  We  moderns,  indeed,  fancy 
that  the  necessities  of  the  Romish  Church — the  mere  instincts 
of  self-protection  in  Popery  —  were  what  offered  the  bounty 
on  this  air-woven  philosophy;  and  partly  that  is  true;  but 
it  is  most  certain  that  all  the  bounties  in  this  world  would  have 
failed  to  operate  effectually,  had  they  not  met  with  those  cir- 
cumstances in  the  silent  life  of  monasteries  which  favored 
the  growth  of  such  a  self-spun  metaphysical  divinity.  Mo- 
nastic life  predisposed  the  restlessness  of  human  intellect  to 
move  in  that  direction.  It  was  one  of  the  few  directions  com- 
patible with  solitude  and  penury  of  books.  It  was  the  only 
one  that  opened  an  avenue  at  once  to  novelty  and  to  freedom 
of  thought.  Now,  then,  precisely  what  the  monastic  life 
of  the  schoolmen  was  in  relation  to  Philosophy,  the  Greece  of 
Pericles  had  been  in  relation  to  Literature.  What  circum- 
stances, what  training,  or  predisposing  influences  existed  for 
the  monk  in  his  cell,  the  same  (or  such  as  were  tantamount) 
existed  for  the  Grecian  wit  in  the  atmosphere  of  Athens. 


DE  QUINCE Y  21/ 

Three  great  agencies  were  at  work,  and  unconsciously  mould- 
ing the  efforts  of  the  earliest  schoolmen  about  the  opening  of 
the  Crusades,  and  of  the  latest  some  time  after  their  close ;  — 
three  analogous  agencies,  the  same  in  virtue,  though  varied 
in  circumstances,  gave  impulse  and  guidance  to  the  men  of 
Greece,  from  Pericles,  at  the  opening  of  Greek  literature,  to 
Alexander  of  Macedon,  who  witnessed  its  second  harvest. 
And  these  agencies  were: — ist,  Leisure  in  excess,  with  a 
teeming  intellect ;  the  burden,  under  a  new-born  excitement, 
of  having  nothing  to  do.  2d,  Scarcity,  without  an  absolute 
famine,  of  books;  enough  to  awake  the  dormant  cravings, 
but  not  enough  to  gratify  them  without  personal  participa- 
tion in  the  labors  of  intellectual  creation.  3^/,  A  revolutionary 
restlessness,  produced  by  the  recent  establishment  of  a  new 
and  growing  public  interest. 

The  two  first  of  these  agencies  for  stimulating  intellects 
already  roused  by  agitating  changes  are  sufficiently  obvious; 
though  few  perhaps  are  aware  to  what  extent  idleness  pre- 
vailed in  Pagan  Greece,  and  even  in  Rome,  under  the  system 
of  household  slavery,  and  under  the  bigoted  contempt  of 
commerce.  But,  waiving  that  point,  and  for  the  moment 
waiving  also  the  degree  of  scarcity  which  affected  books  at  the 
era  of  Pericles,  we  must  say  one  word  as  to  the  two  great 
analogous  public  interests  which  had  formed  themselves 
separately,  and  with  a  sense  of  revolutionary  power,  for  the 
Greeks  on  the  one  hand,  and  for  the  Schoolmen  on  the  other. 
As  respected  the  Grecians,  and  especially  the  Athenians,  this 
excitement  lay  in  the  sentiment  of  nationality  which  had  been 
first  powerfully  organized  by  the  Persian  War.  Previously 
to  that  war  the  sentiment  no  doubt  smouldered  obscurely; 
but  the  oriental  invasion  it  was  which  kindled  it  into  a  tor- 
rent of  flame.  And  it  is  interesting  to  remark  that  the  very 
same  cause  which  fused  and  combined  these  scattered  tribes 


2l8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

into  the  unity  of  Hellas,  viz.  their  common  interest  in  making 
head  against  an  awful  invader,  was  also  the  cause  which  most 
of  all  separated  them  into  local  parties  by  individual  rivalship 
and  by  characteristic  services.  The  arrogant  Spartan,  mad 
with  a  French-like  self-glorification,  boasted  forever  of  his 
little  Thermopylae.  Ten  years  earlier  the  far  sublimer  dis- 
play of  Athenian  Marathon,  to  say  nothing  of  after-services  at 
Salamis  or  elsewhere,  had  placed  Attica  at  the  summit  of  the 
Greek  family.  No  matter  whether  seliish  jealousy  would 
allow  that  preeminence  to  be  recognized;  doubtless  it  was 
felt.  With  this  civic  preeminence  arose  concurrently  for 
Athens  the  development  of  an  intellectual  preeminence. 
On  this  we  need  say  nothing.  But  even  here,  although  the 
preeminence  was  too  dazzling  to  have  been  at  any  time 
overlooked,  yet,  with  some  injustice  in  every  age  to  Athens, 
her  light  has  been  recognized,  but  not  what  gave  it  value, 
—  the  contrasting  darkness  of  all  around  her.  This  did  not 
escape  Paterculus,  whose  understanding  is  always  vigilant. 
"  We  talk,"  says  he,  "  of  Grecian  eloquence  or  Grecian 
poetry,  when  we  should  say  Attic;  for  who  has  ever  heard 
of  Theban  orators,  of  Lacedaemonian  artists,  or  Corinthian 
poets  ?  "  *  iF^schylus,  the  first  great  author  of  Athens  (for 
Herodotus  was  not  Athenian),  personally  fought  in  the 
Persian  War.  Consequently  the  two  modes  of  glory  for 
Athens    were    almost    of    simultaneous    emergence.     And 

*  People  will  here  remind  us  that  Aristotle  was  half  a  foreigner,  being 
born  at  Stagira  in  Macedon.  Ay,  but  amongst  Athenian  emigrants,  and  of 
an  Athenian  father!  His  mother,  we  think,  was  Thracian.  The  crossing 
of  races  almost  uniformly  terminates  in  producing  splendor,  at  any  rate 
energy,  of  intellect.  If  the  roll  of  great  men,  or  at  least  of  energetic  men, 
in  Christendom  were  carefully  examined,  it  would  astonish  us  to  observe 
how  many  have  been  the  children  of  mixed  marriages,  —  i.e.  of  alliances 
between  two  bloods  as  to  nation,  although  the  races  might  originally  have 
been  the  same. 


DE  QUINCE  Y  219 

what  wc  are  now  wishing  to  insist  on  is  that  precisely  by 
and  through  this  great  unifying  event,  viz.  the  double  inroad 
of  Asia  militant  upon  Greece,  Greece  first  became  generally 
and  reciprocally  known  to  Greece  herself;  that  Greece  was 
then  first  arranged  and  cast^  as  it  were  dramatically,  according 
to  her  capacities,  services,  duties;  that  a  general  conscious- 
ness was  then  diffused  of  the  prevailing  relations  in  which 
each  political  family  stood  to  the  rest;  and  that  in  the  leading 
states  every  intellectual  citizen  drew  a  most  agitating  excite- 
ment from  the  particular  character  of  glory  which  had  settled 
upon  his  own  tribe,  and  the  particular  station  which  had 
devolved  upon  it  amongst  the  champions  of  civilization. 

That  was  the  positive  force  acting  upon  Athens.  Now, 
reverting  to  the  monkish  schoolmen,  in  order  to  complete  the 
parallel,  what  was  the  corresponding  force  acting  upon  them  ? 
Leisure  and  want  of  books  were  accidents  common  to  both 
parties,  —  to  the  scholastic  age  and  to  the  age  of  Pericles, 
These  were  the  negative  forces,  concurring  with  others  to 
sustain  a  movement  once  begun,  but  incapable  of  giving  the 
original  impulse.  What  was  the  active,  the  ajjirmative,  force 
which  effected  for  the  scholastic  monks  that  unity  and  sense  of 
common  purposes  which  had  been  effected  for  the  Greeks  by 
the  sudden  development  of  a  Grecian  interest  opposed  to  a 
Persian,  —  of  a  civilized  interest,  under  sudden  peril,  opposed 
to  the  barbarism  of  the  universal  planet  ?  What  was  there, 
for  the  race  of  monkish  schoolmen  laboring  through  three 
centuries,  in  the  nature  of  a  known  palpable  interest,  which 
could  balance  so  grand  a  principle  of  union  and  of  effort  as 
this  acknowledged  guardianship  of  civilization  had  suddenly 
unfolded,  like  a  banner,  for  the  Greeks  during  the  infancy  of 
Pericles?*     What  could  there  be  of  corresponding  grandeur? 

*  It  is  well  to  give  unity  to  our  grandest  remembrances  by  connecting  them, 
as  many  as  can  be,  with  the  same  centre.     Pericles  died  in  the  year  429 


220  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Beforehand,  this  should  have  seemed  impossible:  but,  in 
reality,  a  far  grander  mode  of  interest  had  arisen  for  the 
schoolmen:  grander,  because  more  indefinite;  more  indefi- 
nite, because  spiritual.  It  was  this: — The  Western  or  Latin 
Church  had  slowly  developed  her  earthly  power.  As  an 
edifice  of  civil  greatness  throughout  the  western  world,  she 
stood  erect  and  towering.  In  the  eleventh  century,  beyond 
all  others,  she  had  settled  her  deep  foundations.  The  work 
thus  far  was  complete ;  but  blank  civil  power,  though  in- 
dispensable, was  the  feeblest  of  her  arms,  and,  taken  sepa- 
rately, was  too  frail  to  last,  besides  that  it  was  liable  to  revo- 
lutions. The  authority  by  which  chiefly  she  ruled,  had 
ruled,  and  hoped  to  rule,  was  spiritual;  and,  with  the  grow- 
ing institutions  of  the  age,  embodying  so  much  of  future  re- 
sistance, it  was  essential  that  this  spiritual  influence  should  be 
founded  on  a  subtle  philosophy,  difficult  to  learn,  difficult  to 
refute;  as  also  that  many  dogmas  already  established,  such  as 
tradition  by  way  of  prop  to  infallibility,  should  receive  a  far 
ampler  development.  The  Latin  Church,  we  must  remember, 
was  not  yet  that  Church  of  Papal  Rome,  in  the  maturity  of  its 
doctrines  and  its  pretensions,  which  it  afterwards  became. 
And,  when  we  consider  how  vast  a  benefactress  this  Church 
had  been  to  early  Christendom  when  moulding  and  settling 
her  foundations,  as  also  in  what  light  she  must  have  ap- 
peared to  her  own  pious  children  in  centuries  where  as  yet 
only  the  first  local  breezes  of  opposition  had  begun  to  whisper 
amongst  the  Albigenses,  &c.,  we  are  bound  in  all  candor  to 
see  that  a  sublimer  interest  could  not  have  existed  for  any 
series  of  philosophers  than  the  profound  persuasion  that  by 
marrying  metaphysics  to  divinity,  two  sciences  even  separately 

before  Christ.  Supposing  his  age  to  be  fifty-six,  he  would  then  be  born  about 
485  B.C.,  —  that  is,  five  years  after  the  first  Persian  invasion  under  Darius, 
five  years  before  the  second  under  Xerxes. 


DE  QUINCE Y  221 

SO  grand,  and  by  the  pursuit  of  labyrinthine  truth,  they  were 
building  up  an  edifice  reaching  to  the  heavens,  —  the  great 
spiritual  fortress  of  the  Catholic  Church. 

Here  let  us  retrace  the  course  of  our  speculations,  lest 
the  reader  should  suppose  us  to  be  wandering. 

First,  for  the  sake  of  illustrating  more  vividly  the  influ- 
ences which  acted  on  the  Greece  of  Pericles,  we  bring 
forward  another  case  analogously  circumstanced,  as  moulded 
by  the  same  causes: — i.  The  same  condition  of  intellect 
under  revolutionary  excitement ;  2.  The  same  penury  of  books; 
3.  The  same  chilling  gloom  from  the  absence  of  female 
charities,  —  the  consequent  reaction  of  that  oppressive 
ennui  which  Helvetius  fancied,  amongst  all  human  agencies, 
to  be  the  most  potent  stimulant  for  the  intellect;  4.  The 
same  (though  far  different)  enthusiasm  and  elevation  of 
thought  from  disinterested  participation  in  forwarding  a 
great  movement  of  the  age:  for  the  one  side  involving  the 
glory  of  their  own  brilliant  country  and  concurrent  with 
civilization ;  for  the  other,  coextensive  with  all  spiritual  truth 
and  all  spiritual  power. 

Next,  we  remark  that  men  living  permanently  under  such 
influences  must,  of  mere  necessity,  resort  to  that  order  of 
intellectual  pursuits  which  requires  little  aid  ah  extra,  —  that 
order,  in  fact,  which  philosophically  is  called  "subjective,"  as 
drawing  much  from  our  own  proper  selves,  or  little  (if  any- 
thing) from  extraneous  objects. 

And  then,  thirdly,  we  remark  that  such  pursuits  are 
peculiarly  favorable  to  the  culture  of  style.  In  fact  they 
force  that  culture.  A  man  who  has  absolute  facts  to  com- 
municate from  some  branch  of  study  external  to  himself,  as 
physiology,  suppose,  or  anatomy,  or  astronomy,  is  careless 
of  style ;  or  at  least  he  may  be  so,  because  he  is  independent 
of  style,  for  what  he  has  to  communicate  neither  readily  ad- 


222  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

mits,  nor  much  needs,  any  graces  in  the  mode  of  communi- 
cation; the  matter  transcends  and  oppresses  the  manner. 
The  matter  tells  without  any  manner  at  all.  But  he  who  has 
to  treat  a  vague  question,  such  as  Cicero  calls  a  quastio 
infinita,  where  everything  is  to  be  finished  out  of  his  own 
peculiar  feelings,  or  his  own  way  of  viewing  things  (in  con- 
tradistinction to  a  qucEstio  finita,  where  determinate  data  from 
without  already  furnish  the  main  materials),  soon  finds  that 
the  manner  of  treating  it  not  only  transcends  the  matter,  but 
very  often,  and  in  a  very  great  proportion,  is  the  matter. 
In  very  many  subjective  exercises  of  the  mind,  —  as,  for  in- 
stance, in  that  class  of  poetry  which  has  been  formally  desig- 
nated by  this  epithet  (meditative  poetry,^  we  mean,  in  op- 
position to  the  Homeric,  which  is  intensely  objective),  the 
problem  before  the  writer  is  to  project  his  own  inner  mind; 
to  bring  out  consciously  what  yet  lurks  by  involution  in  many 
unanalyzed  feelings;  in  short,  to  pass  through  a  prism  and 
radiate  into  distinct  elements  what  previously  had  been  even 
to  himself  but  dim  and  confused  ideas  intermixed  with  each 
other.  Now,  in  such  cases,  the  skill  with  which  detention  or 
conscious  arrest  is  given  to  the  evanescent,  external  projection 
to  what  is  internal,  outline  to  what  is  fluxionary,  and  body  to 
what  is  vague,  —  all  this  depends  entirely  on  the  command 
over  language  as  the  one  sole  means  of  embodying  ideas;  and 
in  such  cases  the  style,  or,  in  the  largest  sense,  manner,  is 
confluent  with  the  matter.  But,  at  all  events,  even  by  those 
who  are  most  impatient  of  any  subtleties,  or  what  they 
consider  "  metaphysical "  distinctions,  thus  much  must  be 
conceded:  viz.  that  those  who  rest  upon  external  facts, 
tangible  realities,  and  circumstantial  details,  —  in  short, 
generally  upon  the  objective,  whether  in  a  case  of  narration  or 
of  argument,  —  must  forever  be  less  dependent  upon  style 
than  those  who  have  to  draw  upon  their  own  understandings 


DR  QUINCEY  223 

and  their  own  peculiar  feelings  for  the  furniture  and  matter  of 
their  composition.  A  single  illustration  will  make  this  plain. 
It  is  an  old  remark,  and,  in  fact,  a  subject  of  continual  ex- 
perience, that  lawyers  fail  as  public  speakers  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Even  Erskine,  the  greatest  of  modern  advocates, 
was  nobody  as  a  senator;  and  the  "  fluent  Murray,"  two 
generations  before  him,  had  found  his  fluency  give  way  under 
that  mode  of  trial.  But  why?  How  was  it  possible  that  a 
man's  fluency  in  one  chamber  of  public  business  should  thus 
suddenly  be  defeated  and  confounded  in  another?  The 
reason  is  briefly  expressed  in  Cicero's  distinction  between  a 
qiKEstio  finita  and  a  qucBstio  infiniia.  In  the  courts  of  law, 
the  orator  was  furnished  with  a  brief,  an  abstract  of  facts, 
downright  statements  upon  oath,  circumstances  of  presump- 
tion, and,  in  short,  a  whole  volume  of  topics  external  to  his 
own  mind.  Sometimes,  it  is  true,  the  advocate  would 
venture  a  little  out  to  sea  propria  marte:  in  a  case  of  crim. 
con.,  for  instance,  he  would  attempt  a  little  picture  of  do- 
mestic happiness  drawn  from  his  own  funds.  But  he  was 
emboldened  to  do  this  from  his  certain  knowledge  that  in  the 
facts  of  his  brief  he  had  always  a  hasty  retreat  in  case  of  any 
danger  that  he  should  founder.  If  the  httle  picture  prospered, 
it  was  well:  if  not,  if  symptoms  of  weariness  began  to  arise  in 
the  audience,  or  of  hesitation  in  himself,  it  was  but  to  cut  the 
matter  short,  and  return  to  the  terra  firma  of  his  brief,  when  all 
again  was  fluent  motion.  Besides  that,  each  separate  tran- 
sition, and  the  distribution  of  the  general  subject,  offered 
themselves  spontaneously  in  a  law  case;  the  logic  was  given 
as  well  as  the  method.  Very  often  the  mere  order  of  chro- 
nology dictated  the  succession  and  arrangement  of  the  topics. 
Now,  on  the  other  hand,  in  a  House  of  Commons  oration, 
although  sometimes  there  may  occur  statements  of  fact  and 
operose  calculations,  still  these  are  never  more  than  a  text, 


224  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

at  the  very  best,  for  the  political  discussion,  but  often  no 
more  than  a  subsequent  illustration  or  proof  attached  to 
some  one  of  its  heads.  The  main  staple  of  any  long  speech 
must  always  be  some  general  view  of  national  poHcy;  and, 
in  Cicero's  language,  such  a  view  must  always  be  infinita; 
that  is,  not  determined  ah  extra,  but  shaped  and  drawn  from 
the  funds  of  one's  own  understanding.  The  facts  are  here 
subordinate  and  ministerial;  in  the  case  before  a  jury  the 
facts  are  all  in  all.  The  forensic  orator  satisfies  his  duty  if  he 
does  but  take  the  facts  exactly  as  they  stand  in  his  brief,  and 
place  them  before  his  audience  in  that  order,  and  even  (if  he 
should  choose  it)  in  those  words.  The  parliamentary  orator 
has  no  opening  for  facts  at  all,  but  as  he  himself  may  be  able 
to  create  such  an  opening  by  some  previous  expositions  of 
doctrine  or  opinion,  of  the  probable  or  expedient.  The  one 
is  always  creeping  along  shore;  the  other  is  always  out  at  sea. 
Accordingly,  the  degrees  of  anxiety  which  severally  affect  the 
two  cases  are  best  brought  to  the  test  in  this  one  question  — 
"  What  shall  I  say  next?'^  —  an  anxiety  besetting  orators  like 
that  which  besets  poor  men  in  respect  to  their  children's 
daily  bread.  "This  moment  it  is  secured;  but,  alas  for  the 
next !  "  Now,  the  judicial  orator  finds  an  instant  relief:  the 
very  points  of  the  case  are  numbered ;  and,  if  he  cannot  find 
more  to  say  upon  No.  7,  he  has  only  to  pass  on  and  call  up 
No.  8.  Whereas  the  deliberative  orator,  in  a  senate  or  a 
literary  meeting,  finds  himself  always  in  this  situation,  — 
that,  having  reached  with  difficulty  that  topic  which  we  have 
supposed  to  be  No.  7,  one  of  three  cases  uniformly  occurs: 
either  he  does  not  perceive  any  No.  8  at  all;  or,  secondly,  he 
sees  a  distracting  choice  of  No.  8's  —  the  ideas  to  which  he 
might  next  pass  are  many,  but  he  does  not  see  whither  they 
will  lead  him;  or,  thirdly,  he  sees  a  very  fair  and  promising 
No.  8,  but  cannot  in  any  way  discover  off-hand  how  he  is  to 


DE  QUINCEY  22$ 

effect  a  transition  to  this  new  topic.  He  cannot,  with  the 
rapidity  requisite,  modulate  out  of  the  one  key  into  the  other. 
His  anxiety  increases,  utter  confusion  masters  him,  and  he 
breaks  down. 

We  have  made  this  digression  by  way  of  seeking,  in  a  well- 
known  case  of  public  life,  an  illustration  of  the  difference 
between  a  subjective  and  an  objective  exercise  of  the  mind. 
It  is  the  sudden  translation  from  the  one  exercise  to  the  other 
which,  and  which  only,,  accounts  for  the  failure  of  advocates 
when  attempting  senatorial  efforts.  Once  used  to  depend  on 
memorials  or  briefs  of  facts,  or  of  evidence  not  self-derived, 
the  advocate,  hke  a  child  in  leading-strings,  loses  that  com- 
mand over  his  own  internal  resources  which  otherwise  he 
might  have  drawn  from  practice.  In  fact,  the  advocate,  with 
his  brief  lying  before  him,  is  precisely  in  the  condition  of  a 
parliamentary  speaker  who  places  a  written  speech  or  notes  for 
a  speech  in  his  hat.  This  trick  h:is  sometimes  been  practised; 
and  the  consternation  which  would  befall  the  orator  in  the  case 
of  such  a  hat-speech  being  suddenly  blown  away  precisely 
realizes  the  situation  of  a  nisi  prius  orator  when  first  getting 
on  his  legs  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He  has  swum  with 
bladders  all  his  life:    suddenly  he  must  swim  without  them. 

This  case  explains  why  it  is  that  all  subjective  branches  of 
study  favor  the  cultivation  of  style.  Whatsoever  is  entirely 
independent  of  the  mind,  and  external  to  it,  is  generally  ecjual 
to  its  own  enunciation.  Ponderable  facts  and  external 
realities  are  intelligible  in  almost  any  language:  they  are  self- 
explained  and  self-sustained.  But,  the  more  closely  any 
exercise  of  mind  is  connected  with  what  is  internal  and  in- 
dividual in  the  sensibilities,  —  that  is,  with  what  is  philosophic- 
ally termed  subjective,  —  precisely  in  that  degree,  and  the 
more  subtly,  does  the  style  or  the  embodying  of  the  thoughts 
cease  to  be  a  mere  separable  ornament,  and  in  fact  the  more 
Q 


226  THEORIES    OE  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

does  the  manner,  as  we  expressed  it  before,  become  confluent 
with  the  matter.  In  saying  this,  we  do  but  vary  the  form  of 
what  we  once  heard  delivered  on  this  subject  by  Mr.  Words- 
worth. His  remark  was  by  far  the  weightiest  thing  we  ever 
heard  on  the  subject  of  style;  and  it  was  this:  that  it  is  in  the 
highest  degree  unphilosophic  to  call  language  or  diction  "  the 
dress  of  thoughts."  And  what  was  it  then  that  he  would 
substitute?  Why  this:  he  would  call  it  "  the  incarnation  of 
thoughts."  Never  in  one  word  was  so  profound  a  truth  con- 
veyed. Mr.  Wordsworth  was  thinking,  doubtless,  of  poetry 
like  his  own:  viz.  that  which  is  eminently  meditative.  And 
the  truth  is  apparent  on  consideration:  for,  if  language  were 
merely  a  dress,  then  you  could  separate  the  two;  you  could 
lay  the  thoughts  on  the  left  hand,  the  language  on  th'fe  right. 
But,  generally  speaking,  you  can  no  more  deal  thus  with 
poetic  thoughts  than  you  can  with  soul  and  body.  The 
union  is  too  subtle,  the  intertexture  too  ineffable,  —  each 
coexisting  not  merely  with  the  other,  but  each  in  and  through 
the  other.  An  image,  for  instance,  a  single  word,  often  enters 
into  a  thought  as  a  constituent  part.  In  short,  the  two 
elements  are  not  united  as  a  body  with  a  separable  dress,  but 
as  a  mysterious  incarnation.  And  thus,  in  what  proportion 
the  thoughts  are  subjective,  in  that  same  proportion  does  the 
very  essence  become  identical  with  the  expression,  and  the 
style  become  confluent  with  the  matter. 

The  Greeks,  by  want  of  books,  philosophical  instruments, 
and  innumerable  other  aids  to  aU  objective  researches,  being 
thrown  more  exclusively  than  we  upon  their  own  unaided 
minds,  cultivated  logic,  ethics,  metaphysics,  psychology,  — 
all  thoroughly  subjective  studies.  The  schoolmen,  in  the  very 
same  situation,  cultivated  precisely  the  same  field  of  knowl- 
edge. The  Greeks,  indeed,  added  to  their  studies  that  of 
geometry;   for  the  inscription  over  the  gate  of  the  Academy 


DE  QUINCEY  22/ 

("Let  no  one  enter  who  is  not  instructed  in  geometry") 
sufficiently  argues  that  this  science  must  have  made  some 
progress  in  the  days  of  Pericles,  when  it  could  thus  be  made  a 
general  qualification  for  admission  to  a  learned  establishment 
within  thirty  years  after  his  death.  But  geometry  is  partly 
an  objective,  partly  a  subjective,  study.  With  this  exception, 
the  Greeks  and  the  Monastic  Schoolmen  trod  the  very  same 
path. 

Consequently,  in  agreement  with  our  principle,  both  ought 
to  have  found  themselves  in  circumstances  favorable  to  the 
cultivation  of  style.  And  it  is  certain  that  they  did.  As  an 
art^  as  a  practice,  it  was  fehcitously  pursued  in  both  cases.  It 
is  true  that  the  harsh  ascetic  mode  of  treating  philosophy  by 
the  schoolmen  generated  a  corresponding  barrenness,  aridity, 
and  repulsiveness,  in  the  rigid  forms  of  their  technical  lan- 
guage. But,  however  offensive  to  genial  sensibihties,  this 
diction  was  a  perfect  thing  in  its  kind;  and,  to  do  it  justice, 
we  ought  rather  to  compare  it  with  the  exquisite  language  of 
algebra,  —  equally  irreconcilable  to  all  standards  of  aesthetic 
beauty;  ^  but  yet,  for  the  three  quahties  of  elhptical  rapidity 
(that  rapidity  which  constitutes  very  much  of  what  is  meant 
by  elegance  in  mathematics),  of  absolute  precision,  and  of  sim- 
plicity, this  algebraic  language  is  unrivalled  amongst  human 
inventions.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Greeks,  whose  objects 
did  not  confine  them  to  these  austere  studies,  carried  out  their 
corresponding  excellence  in  style  upon  a  far  wider,  and  indeed 
a  comprehensive,  scale.  Almost  all  modes  of  style  were 
exemplified  amongst  them.  Thus  we  endeavor  to  show  that 
the  subjective  pursuits  of  the  Greeks  and  the  Schoolmen  ought 
to  have  favored  a  command  of  appropriate  diction;  and 
afterwards  that  it  did. 

But,  jourthly,  we  are  entitled  to  expect  that,  wherever  style 
exists  in  great    development  as  a  practice,  it  will  soon  be 


228  THEORIES  OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

investigated  with  corresponding  success  as  a  theory.  If 
fine  music  is  produced  spontaneously  in  short  snatches  by 
the  musical  sensibility  of  a  people,  it  is  a  matter  of  certainty 
that  the  science  of  composition,  that  counterpoint,  that 
thorough-bass,  will  soon  be  cultivated  with  a  commensurate 
zeal.  This  is  matter  of  such  obvious  inference  that  in  any  case 
where  it  fails  we  look  for  some  extraordinary  cause  to  account 
for  it.  Now,  in  Greece,  with  respect  to  style,  the  inference 
did  fail.  Style,  as  an  art,  was  in  a  high  state  of  culture; 
style,  as  a  science,  w^as  nearly  neglected.  How  is  this  to  be 
accounted  for  ?  It  arose  naturally  enough  out  of  one  great 
phenomenon  in  the  condition  of  ancient  times,  and  the 
relation  which  that  bore  to  literature  and  to  all  human  exer- 
tion of  the  intellect. 

Did  the  reader  ever  happen  to  reflect  on  the  great  idea  of 
publication?  An  idea  we  call  it;  because  even  in  our  own 
times,  with  all  the  mechanic  aids  of  steam-presses,  &c.,  this 
object  is  most  imperfectly  approached,  and  is  destined,  per- 
haps, forever  to  remain  an  unattainable  ideal,  —  useful 
(like  all  ideals)  in  the  way  of  regulating  our  aims,  but  also  as 
a  practicable  object  not  reconcilable  with  the  limitation  of 
human  power.  For  it  is  clear  that,  if  books  were  multiplied 
by  a  thousandfold,  and  truths  of  all  kinds  were  carried  to  the 
very  fireside  of  every  family,  —  nay,  placed  below  the  eyes  of 
every  individual,  —  still  the  purpose  of  any  universal  pubhca- 
tion  would  be  defeated  and  utterly  confounded,  were  it  only 
by  the  limited  opportunities  of  readers.  One  condition  of 
publication  defeats  another.  Even  so  much  as  a  general  pub- 
lication is  a  hopeless  idea.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand,  pub- 
lication in  some  degree,  and  by  some  mode,  is  a  sine  qua 
non  condition  for  the  generation  of  literature.  Without  a 
larger  sympathy  than  tliat  of  his  own  personal  circle,  it  is 
evident  that  no  writer  could  have  a  motive  for  those  exertions 


DE  QUINCEY  229 

and  previous  preparations  without  which  excellence  is  not 
attainable  in  any  art  whatsoever. 

Now,  in  our  own  times,  it  is  singular,  and  really  philosoph- 
ically curious,  to  remark  the  utter  blindness  of  writers,  readers, 
J)ublishers,  and  all  parties  whatever  interested  in  literature,  as 
to  the  trivial  fraction  of  publicity  which  settles  upon  each  sepa- 
rate work.  The  very  multiplication  of  books  has  continually 
defeated  the  object  in  growing  progression.  Readers  have 
increased,  the  engines  of  publication  have  increased;  but 
books,  increasing  in  a  still  greater  proportion,  have  left  as  the 
practical  result  an  average  quotient  of  publicity  for  each 
book,  taken  apart,  continually  decreasing.  And,  if  the  whole 
world  were  readers,  probably  the  average  publicity  for  each 
separate  work  would  reach  a  minimum;  such  would  be  the 
concurrent  increase  of  books.  But  even  this  view  of  the  case 
keeps  out  of  sight  the  most  monstrous  forms  of  this  phenome- 
non. The  inequahty  of  the  publication  has  the  effect  of 
keeping  very  many  books  absolutely  without  a  reader.  The 
majority  of  books  are  never  opened;  five  hundred  copies  may 
be  printed,  or  half  as  many  more;  of  these  it  may  happen  that 
five  are  carelessly  turned  over.  Popular  journals,  again, 
which  carry  a  promiscuous  miscellany  of  papers  into  the  same 
number  of  hands,  as  a  stage-coach  must  convey  all  its  pas- 
sengers at  the  same  rate  of  speed,  dupe  the  public  with  a 
notion  that  here  at  least  all  are  read.  Not  at  all.  One  or  two 
are  read  from  the  interest  attached  to  their  subjects.  Oc- 
casionally one  is  read  a  little  from  the  ability  with  which  it 
treats  a  subject  not  otherwise  attractive.  The  rest  have  a 
better  chance  certainly  than  books,  because  they  are  at  any 
rate  placed  under  the  eye  and  in  the  hand  of  readers.  But 
this  is  no  more  than  a  variety  of  the  same  case.  A  hasty 
glance  may  be  taken  by  one  in  a  hundred  at  the  less  attractive 
papers;    but  reading  is  out  of  the  question.    Then,  again, 


230  THEORIES   OFSTYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

another  delusion,  by  which  all  parties  disguise  the  truth,  is 
the  absurd  behef  that,  not  being  read  at  present,  a  book  may, 
however,  be  revived  hereafter.  Believe  it  not !  This  is 
possible  only  with  regard  to  books  that  demand  to  be  studied, 
where  the  merit  is  slowly  discovered.  Every  month,  every 
day  indeed,  produces  its  own  novelties,  with  the  additional 
zest  that  they  are  novelties.  Every  future  year,  which  will 
assuredly  fail  in  finding  time  for  its  own  books,  — how  should 
it  find  time  for  defunct  books?  No,  no;  every  year  buries  its 
own  literature.  Since  Waterloo  there  have  been  added  upwards 
of  fifty  thousand  books  and  pamphlets  to  the  shelves  of  our 
native  literature,  taking  no  account  of  foreign  importations. 
Of  these  fifty  thousand  possibly  two  hundred  still  survive ; 
possibly  twenty  will  survive  for  a  couple  of  centuries ; 
possibly  five  or  six  thousand  may  have  been  indifferently 
read;  the  rest  not  so  much  as  opened.  In  this  hasty  sketch 
of  a  calulation  we  assume  a  single  copy  to  represent  a  whole 
edition.  But,  in  order  to  have  the  total  sum  of  copies  nu- 
merically neglected  since  Waterloo,  it  will  be  requisite  to 
multiply  forty-four  thousand  by  five  hundred  at  the  least,  but 
probably  by  a  higher  multiplier.  At  the  very  moment  of 
writing  this  —  by  way  of  putting  into  a  brighter  light  the  in- 
conceivable blunder  as  to  publicity  habitually  committed  by 
sensible  men  of  the  world  —  let  us  mention  what  we  now  see 
before  us  in  a  public  journal.  Speaking  with  disapprobation 
of  a  just  but  disparaging  expression  appHed  to  the  French 
war-mania  by  a  London  morning  paper,  the  writer  has  de- 
scribed it  as  likely  to  irritate  the  people  of  France.  O  genius 
of  arithmetic !  The  offending  London  journal  has  a  circula- 
tion of  four  thousand  copies  daily;  and  it  is  assumed  that 
thirty-three  millions,  of  whom  assuredly  not  twenty-five 
individuals  will  ever  see  the  English  paper  as  a  visible  object 
nor  five  ever  read  the  passage  in  question,  are  to  be  mad- 


DE  QUINCEY  23  1 

dened  by  one  word  in  a  colossal  paper  laid  this  morning 
on  a  table  amongst  fifty  others,  and  to-morrow  morning 
pushed  off  that  table  by  fifty  others  of  more  recent  date. 
How  are  such  delusions  possible?  Simply  from  the  previous 
delusion,  of  ancient  standing,  connected  with  printed  char- 
acters: what  is  printed  seems  to  every  man  invested  with 
some  fatal  character  of  publicity  such  as  cannot  belong  to 
mere  MS.  ;  whilst,  in  the  meantime,  out  of  every  thousand 
printed  pages,  one  at  the  most,  but  at  all  events  a  very  small 
proportion  indeed,  is  in  any  true  sense  more  public  when 
printed  than  previously  as  a  manuscript;  and  that  one,  even 
that  thousandth  part,  perishes  as  effectually  in  a  few  days  to 
each  separate  reader  as  the  words  perish  in  our  daily  conver- 
sation. Out  of  all  that  we  talk,  or  hear  others  talk,  through 
the  course  of  a  year,  how  much  remains  on  the  memory  at 
the  closing  day  of  December?  Quite  as  little,  we  may  be 
sure,  survives  from  most  people's  reading.  A  book  answers 
its  purpose  by  sustaining  the  intellectual  faculties  in  motion 
through  the  current  act  of  reading,  and  a  general  deposition  or 
settling  takes  effect  from  the  sum  of  what  we  read;  even  that, 
however,  chiefly  according  to  the  previous  condition  in  which 
the  book  finds  us  for  understanding  it,  and  referring  them  to 
heads  under  some  existing  arrangement  of  our  knowledge. 
Publication  is  an  idle  term  applied  to  what  is  not  published; 
and  nothing  is  published  which  is  not  made  known  publicly 
to  the  understanding  as  well  as  the  eye;  whereas,  for  the 
enormous  majority  of  what  is  printed,  we  cannot  say  so  much 
as  that  it  is  made  known  to  the  eyes. 

For  what  reason  have  we  insisted  on  this  unpleasant  view 
of  a  phenomenon  incident  to  the  limitation  of  our  faculties, 
and  apparently  without  remedy?  Upon  another  occasion  it 
might  have  been  useful  to  do  so,  were  it  only  to  impress  upon 
every  writer  the  vast  importance  of  compression.     Simply  to 


232  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

retrench  one  word  from  each  sentence,  one  superfluous  epithet, 
for  example,  would  probably  increase  the  disposable  time  of 
the  public  by  one-twelfth  part;  in  other  words,  would  add 
another  month  to  the  year,  or  raise  any  sum  of  volumes  read 
from  eleven  to  twelve  hundred.  A  mechanic  operation  would 
effect  that  change ;  but,  by  cultivating  a  closer  logic  and  more 
severe  habits  of  thinking,  perhaps  two  sentences  out  of  each 
three  might  be  pruned  away,  and  the  amount  of  possible 
publication  might  thus  be  increased  in  a  threefold  degree.  A 
most  serious  duty,  therefore,  and  a  duty  which  is  annually 
growing  in  solemnity,  appears  to  be  connected  with  the  culture 
of  an  unwordy  diction;  much  more,  however,  with  the  culture 
of  clear  thinking,  —  that  being  the  main  key  to  good  writing, 
and  consequently  to  fluent  reading. 

But  all  this,  though  not  unconnected  with  our  general 
theme,  is  wide  of  our  immediate  purpose.  The  course  of  our 
logic  at  this  point  runs  in  the  following  order.  The  Athenians, 
from  causes  assigned,  ought  to  have  consummated  the  whole 
science  and  theory  of  style.  But  they  did  not.  Why? 
Simply  from  a  remarkable  deflection  or  bias  given  to  their 
studies  by  a  difllculty  connected  with  publication.  For  some 
modes  of  literature  the  Greeks  had  a  means  of  publication,  for 
many  they  had  not.  That  one  dii^erence,  as  we  shall  show, 
disturbed  the  just  valuation  of  style. 

Some  mode  of  publication  must  have  existed  for  Athens: 
that  is  evident.  The  mere  jact  of  a  literature  proves  it.  For 
without  public  sympathy  how  can  a  literature  arise?  or  public 
sympathy  without  a  regular  organ  of  })ublication?  What 
poet  would  submit  to  the  labors  of  his  most  diflicult  art,  if  he 
had  no  reasonable  prospect  of  a  large  audience,  and  some- 
what of  a  permanent  audience,  to  welcome  and  adopt  his 
productions? 

Now  then,  in  the  Athens  of  Pericles,  what  was  the  audience, 


DE  QUINCE Y  233 

how  composed,  and  how  insured,  on  which  the  htcrary 
composer  might  rely?  By  what  channel,  in  short,  did  the 
Athenian  writer  calculate  on  a  publication  ?  This  is  a  very 
interesting  question,  and,  as  regards  much  in  the  civihzation 
of  Greece,  both  for  what  it  caused  and  what  it  prevented,  is 
an  important  question.  In  the  elder  days,  —  in  fact  we  may 
suppose  through  the  five  hundred  years  from  the  Trojan 
expedition  to  Pisistratus  and  Solon,  —  all  publication  was 
effected  through  two  classes  of  men:  the  public  reciters  and 
the  public  singers.  Thus,  no  doubt,  it  was  that  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  were  sent  down  to  the  hands  of  Pisistratus,  who  has 
the  traditional  reputation  of  having  first  arranged  and  revised 
these  poems.  These  reciters  or  singers  to  the  harp  would 
probably  rehearse  one  entire  book  of  the  Iliad  at  every 
splendid  banquet.  Every  book  would  be  kept  in  remem- 
brance and  currency  by  the  peculiar  local  relations  of  par- 
ticular states  or  particular  families  to  ancestors  connected  with 
Troy.  This  mode  of  publication,  however,  had  the  disad- 
vantage that  it  was  among  the  arts  ministerial  to  sensual 
enjoyment.  And  it  is  some  argument  for  the  extensive 
diffusion  of  such  a  practice  in  the  early  times  of  Greece  that, 
both  in  the  Greece  of  later  times,  and,  by  adoption  from  her, 
in  the  Rome  of  cultivated  ages,  we  find  the  uKpoa/xara 
as  commonly  established  by  way  of  a  dinner  appurtenance  — 
that  is,  exercises  of  display  addressed  to  the  ear,  recitations 
of  any  kind  with  and  without  music  —  not  at  all  less 
frequently  than  opa/xara,  or  the  corresponding  display 
to  the  eye  (dances  or  combats  of  gladiators).  These  were 
doubtless  inheritances  from  the  ancient  usages  of  Greece,  — 
modes  of  pubUcation  resorted  to  long  before  the  Olympic 
Games  by  the  mere  necessitous  cravings  for  sympathy,  and 
kept  up  long  after  that  institution,  as  in  itself  too  brief  and  rare 
in  its  recurrence  to  satisfy  the  necessity. 


234  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Such  was  the  earliest  effort  of  publication,  and  in  its  feeble 
infancy;  for  this,  besides  its  limitation  in  point  of  audience, 
was  confined  to  narrative  poetry.  But,  when  the  ideal  of 
Greece  was  more  and  more  exalted  by  nearer  comparison 
with  barbarous  standards,  after  the  sentiment  of  patriotism 
had  coalesced  with  vindictive  sentiments,  and  when  towering 
cities  began  to  reflect  the  grandeur  of  this  land  as  in  a  visual 
mirror,  these  cravings  for  publicity  became  more  restless  and 
irrepressible.  And  at  length,  in  the  time  of  Pericles,  con- 
currently with  the  external  magnificence  of  the  city,  arose  for 
Athens  two  modes  of  publication,  each  upon  a  scale  of  gi- 
gantic magnitude. 

What  were  these?  The  Theatre  and  the  Agora  or  Forum: 
publication  by  the  Stage,  and  publication  by  the  Hustings. 
These  were  the  extraordinary  modes  of  pubhcation  which 
arose  for  Athens:  one  by  a  sudden  birth,  like  that  of  Minerva, 
in  the  very  generation  of  Pericles;  the  other  slowly  maturing 
itself  from  the  generation  of  Pisistratus,  which  preceded  that 
of  Pericles  by  a  hundred  years.  This  double  publication, 
scenic  and  forensic,  was  virtually,  and  for  all  the  loftier  pur- 
poses of  publication,  the  press  of  Athens.  And,  however 
imperfect  a  representative  this  may  seem  of  a  typographical 
pubhcation,  certain  it  is  that  in  some  important  features  the 
Athenian  publication  had  separate  advantages  of  its  own.  It 
was  a  far  more  effective  and  correct  publication  in  the  first 
place,  enjoying  every  aid  of  powerful  accompaniment  from 
voice,  gesture,  scenery,  music,  and  suffering  in  no  instance 
from  false  reading  or  careless  reading.  Then,  secondly,  it 
was  a  far  wider  i)ubhcation:  each  drama  being  read  (or 
heard,  which  is  a  far  better  thing)  by  25,000  or  30,000  persons, 
counterbalancing  at  least  forty  editions  such  as  we  on  an 
average  publish;  each  oration  being  delivered  with  just 
emphasis  to  perhaps  7000.      But  why,  in  this  mention  of  a 


DE  QUJNCEY  235 

Stage  or  hustings  publication,  as  opposed  to  a  publication  by 
the  printing-press,  why  was  it,  we  are  naturally  admon- 
ished to  ask,  that  the  Greeks  had  no  press  ?  The  ready 
answer  will  be,  —  because  the  art  of  printing  had  not  been 
discovered.  But  that  is  an  error,  the  detection  of  which  we 
owe  to  the  present  Archbishop  of  Dublin.  The  art  of  printing 
was  discovered.  It  had  been  discovered  repeatedly.  The 
art  which  multiplied  the  legends  upon  a  coin  or  medal  (a 
work  which  the  ancients  performed  by  many  degrees  better 
than  we  moderns,  —  for  we  make  it  a  mechanic  art,  they  a 
fine  art)  had  in  effect  anticipated  the  art  of  printing.*  It  was 
an  art,  this  typographic  mystery,  which  awoke  and  went  back 
to  sleep  many  times  over  from  mere  defect  of  materials.  Not 
the  defect  of  typography  as  an  art,  but  the  defect  of  paper  as  a 
material  for  keeping  this  art  in  motion,  —  there  lay  the  reason, 
as  Dr.  Whately  most  truly  observes,  why  printed  books  had 
no  existence  amongst  the  Greeks  of  Pericles,  or  afterwards 
amongst  the  Romans  of  Cicero.  And  why  was  there  no  paper? 
The  common  reason  applying  to  both  countries  was  the  want 
of  linen  rags,  and  that  want  arose  from  the  universal  habit  of 
wearing  woolen  garments.  In  this  respect  Athens  and  Rome 
were  on  the  same  level.  But  for  Athens  the  want  was  driven 
to  a  further  extremity  by  the  slenderncss  of  her  commerce 
with  Egypt,  whence  only  any  substitute  could  have  been 
drawn. 

Even  for  Rome  itself  the  scarcity  of  paper  ran  through 
many  degrees.  Horace,  the  poet,  was  amused  with  the  town 
of  Equotuticum  for  two  reasons:  as  incapable  of  entering  into 
hexameter  verse  from  its  prosodial  quantity  (versu  quod  dicere 
non  est);  and  because  it  purchased  water  (vanit  vilissima 
rerum  aqua), — a  circumstance  in  which  it  agrees  with  the 
well-known  Clifton,  above  the  hot  wells  of  Bristol,  where 
water  is  bought  by  the  shilling's  worth.     But  neither  Horatian 


236  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Equotuticum  nor  Bristolian  Clifton  can  ever  have  been  as 
"  hard  up  "  for  water  as  the  Mecca  caravan.  And  the  dif- 
ferences were  as  great  in  respect  to  the  want  of  paper  between 
the  Athens  of  Pericles  or  Alexander  and  the  Rome  of  Augustus 
Caesar.  Athens  had  bad  poets,  whose  names  have  come  down 
to  modern  times;  but  Athens  could  no  more  have  afforded  to 
punish  bad  authors  by  sending  their  works  to  grocers  — 
"  in  vicum  vendentem  pus  et  odores, 
Et  piper,  et  quicquid  chartis  amicitur  ineptis  "  — 

than  London,  because  gorged  with  the  wealth  of  two  Indies, 
can  afford  to  pave  her  streets  with  silver.  This  practice 
of  applying  unsalable  authors  to  the  ignoble  uses  of  retail 
dealers  in  petty  articles  must  have  existed  in  Rome  for  some 
time  before  it  could  have  attracted  the  notice  of  Horace,  and 
upon  some  considerable  scale  as  a  known  public  usage  before 
it  could  have  roused  any  echoes  of  public  mirth  as  a  satiric 
allusion,  or  have  had  any  meaning  and  sting. 

In  that  one  revelation  of  Horace  we  see  a  proof  how  much 
paper  had  become  more  plentiful.  It  is  true  that  so  long  as 
men  dressed  in  woolen  materials  it  was  impossible  to  look  for 
a  cheap  paper.  Maga  might  have  been  printed  at  Rome  very 
well  for  ten  guineas  a  copy.  Paper  was  dear,  undoubtedly, 
but  it  could  be  had.  On  the  other  hand,  how  desperate  must 
have  been  the  bankruptcy  at  Athens  in  all  materials  for  receiv- 
ing the  record  of  thoughts,  when  we  find  a  poHshed  people 
having  no  better  tickets  or  cards  for  conveying  their  senti- 
ments to  the  public  than  shells  !  Thence  came  the  very  name 
for  civil  banishment,  viz.  ostracism,  because  the  votes  were 
marked  on  an  ostracon,  or  marine  shell.  Again,  in  another 
great  city,  viz.  Syracuse,  you  see  men  reduced  to  petalism,  or 
marking  their  votes  by  the  petals  of  shrubs.  Elsewhere,  as 
indeed  many  centuries  nearer  to  our  own  times  in  Constanti- 
nople, bull's  hide  was  used  for  the  same  purpose. 


DE  QUINCEY  237 

Well  might  the  poor  Greeks  adopt  the  desperate  expedient 
of  white  plastered  walls  as  the  best  memorandum-book  for  a 
man  who  had  thoughts  occurring  to  him  in  the  night-time. 
Brass  only,  or  marble,  could  offer  any  lasting  memorial  for 
thoughts;  and  upon  what  material  the  parts  were  written  out 
for  the  actors  on  the  A.thenian  stage,  or  how  the  elaborate 
revisals  of  the  text  could  be  carried  on,  is  beyond  our  power 
of  conjecture. 

In  this  appalling  state  of  embarrassment  for  the  great  poet 
or  prose  writer,  what  consequences  would  naturally  arise?  A 
king's  favorite  and  friend  like  Aristotle  might  command  the 
most  costly  materials.  For  instance,  if  you  look  back,  from 
this  day  to  1800,  into  the  advertising  records  or  catalogues 
of  great  Parisian  publishers,  you  will  find  more  works  of 
excessive  luxury,  costing  from  a  thousand  francs  for  each  copy 
all  the  way  up  to  as  many  guineas,  in  each  separate  period  of 
fifteen  years  than  in  the  whole  forty  among  the  wealthier  and 
more  enterprising  pubhshers  of  Great  Britain.  What  is  the 
explanation?  Can  the  very  moderate  incomes  of  the  French 
gentry  afford  to  patronize  works  which  are  beyond  the  purses 
of  our  British  aristocracy,  who,  besides,  are  so  much  more  of  a 
reading  class?  Not  so :  the  patronage  for  these  Parisian  works 
of  luxury  is  not  domestic,  it  is  exotic:  chiefly  from  emperors 
and  kings;  from  great  national  libraries;  from  rich  universities; 
from  the  grandees  of  Russia,  Hungary,  or  Great  Britain;  and 
generally  from  those  who,  living  in  splendid  castles  or  hotels, 
require  corresponding  furniture,  and  therefore  corresponding 
books,  because  to  such  people  books  are  necessarily  furniture, 
— since,  upon  the  principles  of  good  taste,  they  must  corre- 
spond with  the  splendor  of  all  around  them.  And  in  the  age  of 
Alexander  there  were  already  purchasers  enough  among  royal 
houses,  or  the  imitators  of  such  houses,  to  encourage  costly 
copies  of  attractive  works.     Aristotle  was  a  privileged  man. 


238  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

But  in  Other  less  favored  cases  the  strong  yearnings  for  public 
sympathy  were  met  by  blank  impossibilities.  Much  martyr- 
dom, we  feel  assured,  was  then  suffered  by  poets.  Thousands, 
it  is  true,  perish  in  our  days,  who  have  never  had  a  solitary 
reader.  But  still  the  existence  in  print  gives  a  delusive  feel- 
ing that  they  may  have  been  read.  They  are  standing  in  the 
market  all  day,  and  somebody,  unperceived  by  themselves, 
may  have  thrown  an  eye  upon  their  wares.  The  thing  is 
possible.  But  for  the  ancient  writer  there  was  a  sheer  physical 
impossibility  that  any  man  should  sympathize  with  what  he 
never  could  have  seen,  except  under  the  two  conditions  we 
have  mentioned. 

These  two  cases  there  were  of  exemption  from  this  dire 
physical  resistance,  —  two  conditions  which  made  pub- 
lication possible;  and,  under  the  horrible  circumstances  of 
sequestration  for  authors  in  general,  need  it  be  said  that  to 
benefit  by  either  advantage  was  sought  with  such  a  zeal  as, 
in  effect,  extinguished  all  other  hterature  ?  If  a  man  could 
be  a  poet  for  the  stage,  a  scriptor  scenicus,  in  that  case  he  was 
pubhshed.  If  a  man  could  be  admitted  as  an  orator,  as  a 
regular  demagogus,  upon  the  popular  bema  or  hustings,  in  that 
case  he  was  published.  If  his  own  thoughts  were  a  torment  to 
him,  until  they  were  reverberated  from  the  hearts  and  flash- 
ing eyes  and  clamorous  sympathy  of  a  multitude,  thus  only  an 
outlet  was  provided,  a  mouth  was  opened,  for  the  volcano 
surging  within  his  brain.  The  vast  theatre  was  an  organ  of 
pubhcation;  the  political  forum  was  an  organ  of  publication. 
And  on  this  twofold  arena  a  torch  was  applied  to  that  inflam- 
mable gas  which  exhaled  spontaneously  from  so  excitable  a 
mind  as  the  mind  of  the  Athenian. 

Need  we  wonder,  then,  at  the  torrent-Hke  determination 
with  which  Athenian  literature,  from  the  era  444  B.C.  to  the 
era  t,t,^  B.C.,  ran  headlong  into  one  or  other  channel,  —  the 


DE  QUINCE Y  2$g 

scenical  poetry  or  the  eloquence  of  the  hustings  ?  For  an 
Athenian  in  search  of  popular  applause  or  of  sympathy  there 
was  no  other  avenue  to  either;  unless,  indeed,  in  the  character 
of  an  artist,  or  of  a  leading  soldier:  but  too  often,  in  this  latter 
class,  it  happened  that  mercenary  foreigners  had  a  preference. 
And  thus  it  was  that,  during  that  period  when  the  popular 
cast  of  government  throughout  Greece  awakened  patriotic 
emulation,  scarcely  anything  is  heard  of  in  Kterature  (allow- 
ing for  the  succession  to  philosophic  chairs,  which  made  it 
their  pride  to  be  private  and  exclusive)  except  dramatic 
poetry  on  the  one  hand,  comic  or  tragic,  and  political  oratory 
on  the  other. 

As  to  this  last  avenue  to  the  public  ear,  how  it  was  abused, 
in  what  excess  it  became  the  nuisance  and  capital  scourge  of 
Athens,  there  needs  only  the  testimony  of  all  contemporary 
men  who  happened  to  stand  aloof  from  that  profession,  or 
all  subsequent  men  even  of  that  very  profession  who  were 
not  blinded  by  some  corresponding  interest  in  some  similar 
system  of  delusion.  Euripides  and  Aristophanes,  contem- 
porary with  the  earHest  practitioners  of  name  and  power 
on  that  stage  of  jugglers,  are  overrun  with  expressions  of 
horror  for  these  pubhc  pests.  "  You  have  every  quahfica- 
tion,"  says  Aristophanes  to  an  aspirant,  "  that  could  be 
wished  for  a  public  orator:  (f)Q}vr}  fiiapa  —  a  voice  like  seven 
devils;  KaKo<;  yeyovw;  —  you  are  by  nature  a  scamp;  070- 
/oato?  el —  you  are  up  to  snuff  in  the  business  of  the  forum." 
From  Euripides  might  be  gathered  a  small  volume,  relying 
merely  upon  so  much  of  his  works  as  yet  survives,  in  illustra- 
tion of  the  horror  which  possessed  him  for  this  gang  of 
pubhc  misleaders:  — 

TovT   iad  6  OvrjTwv  ti  ttoAcis  oi/cou/ieva? 
Ao/Ltov9  T  aTToWvT  —  01  KttAoi  XuLV  Xoyoi. 


240  THEORIES  01  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

"This  is  what  overthrows  cities  admirably  organized, 
and  the  households  of  men,  —  your  superfine  harangues." 
Cicero,  full  four  centuries  later,  looking  back  to  this  very 
period  from  Pericles  to  Alexander,  friendly  as  he  was  by 
the  esprit  de  corps  to  the  order  of  orators,  and  professionally 
biassed  to  uphold  the  civil  uses  of  eloquence,  yet,  as  an  honest 
man,  cannot  deny  that  it  was  this  gift  of  oratory,  hideously 
abused,  which  led  to  the  overthrow  of  Athens  and  the  ruin  of 
Grecian  hberty:  "  Ilia  vetus  Graecia,  quae  quondam  opibus, 
imperio,  gloria  floruit,  hoc  uno  malo  concidit,  —  libertate 
immoderata  ac  licentia  concionum.''  Quintilian,  standing  on 
the  very  same  ground  of  professional  prejudice,  all  in  favor 
of  public  orators,  yet  is  forced  into  the  same  sorrowful  con- 
fession. In  one  of  the  Declamations  ascribed  to  him  he  says, 
"  Civitatum  status  scimus  ab  oratoribus  esse  conversos  "  ; 
and  in  illustration  he  adds  the  example  of  Athens:  "  sive 
illam  Atheniensium  civitatem  (quondam  late  principem) 
intueri  placeat,  accisas  ejus  vires  animadvertemus  vilio 
concionantium.'"  Root  and  branch,  Athens  was  laid  prostrate 
by  her  wicked  Radical  orators;  for  Radical,  in  the  elhptic 
phrase  of  modern  politics,  they  were  almost  to  a  man;  and  in 
this  feature  above  all  others  (a  feature  often  scornfully  exposed 
by  Euripides)  those  technically  known  as  ol  \€jovTe<;,  the 
speaking  men,  and  as  ot  Brj/jbaywyoi,,^  the  misleaders  of  the 
mob,  offer  a  most  suitable  ancestry  for  the  modern  leaders 

*  With  respect  to  the  word  "  demagogues,"  as  a  technical  designation  for 
the  poHtical  orators  and  partisans  at  Athens  (otherwise  called  ol  irpoa-TaTai, 
those  who  headed  any  movement),  it  is  singular  that  so  accurate  a  Greek 
scholar  as  Henry  Stephens  should  have  supposed  linguas  promptas  ad 
plebem  concitandum  (an  expression  of  Livy's)  potius  ruv  drjfiayuywv  fuisse 
quant  twv  ptiropuv;  as  if  the  demagogues  were  a  separate  class  from  the 
popular  orators.  But,  says  Valckenaer,  the  relation  is  soon  stated:  not 
all  the  Athenian  orators  were  demagogues,  but  all  the  demagogues  were  in 
fact,  and  technically  were  called,  orators. 


DE  QUINCE Y  24 1 

of  Radicalism,  —  tlial  with  ihcir  base,  fawning  flatteries  of 
the  people  they  mixed  up  the  venom  of  vipers  against  their 
opponents  and  against  the  aristocracy  of  the  land. 

YTToyA.i^Kdiveti'  pr]fw.TLOL<i  /jtayeiptKOis  — 

"  subtly  to  wheedle  the  people  with  honeyed  words  dressed 
to  its  palate  " :  this  had  been  the  ironical  advice  of  the  scofhng 
Aristophanes.  That  practice  made  the  mob  orator  contempt- 
ible to  manly  tastes,  rather  than  hateful.  But  the  sacrifice 
of  independence —  the  "  pride  which  Hcks  the  dust"  —  is  the 
readiest  training  for  all  uncharitableness  and  falsehood  to- 
wards those  who  seem  either  ri\als  for  the  same  base  pur- 
poses, or  open  antagonists  for  nobler.  And,  accordingly,  it 
is  remarked  by  Euripides  that  these  pestilent  abusers  of  the 
popular  confidence  would  bring  a  mischief  upon  Athens  before 
they  had  finished,  equally  by  their  sycophancies  to  the  mob  and 
by  their  libels  of  foreign  princes.  Hundreds  of  years  after- 
wards, a  Greek  writer,  upon  reviewing  this  most  interesting 
period  of  one  hundred  and  eleven  years,  from  Pericles  to  Al- 
exander, sums  up  and  repeats  the  opinion  of  Euripides  in  this 
general  representative  portrait  of  Attic  oratory,  with  respect, 
to  which  we  wish  to  ask,  Can  any  better  delineation  be  given  of 
a  Chartist,  or  generically  of  a  modern  Jacobin? — ^'O  S-q/xayco- 
709  KaKoSLSaa-KaXei  tov?  ttoWov;,  Xejcov  ra  K€XO'P('0'aix€va  — 
"The  mob-leader  dupes  the  multitude  with  false  doctrines, 
whilst  delivering  things  soothing  to  their  credulous  vanity." 
This  is  one  half  of  his  office, — sycophancy  to  the  immediate 
purseholders,  and  poison  to  the  sources  of  truth;  the  other 
half  is  expressed  with  the  same  spirit  of  prophecy  as  regards 
the  British  future,  kul  Sm/SoXat?  avrov<;  e^aWorpLOL  7rpo<; 
rov<;  apccrrov;, —  "and  by  lying  calumnies' he  utterly  alienates 
them  in  relation  to  their  own  native  aristocracy." 
Now  this  was  a  base  pursuit,  though  somewhat  relieved  by 


242  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  closing  example  of  Demosthenes,  who,  amidst  much 
frailty,  had  a  generous  nature;  and  he  showed  it  chiefly  by  his 
death,  and  in  his  lifetime,  to  use  Milton's  words,  by  uttering 
many  times  "  odious  truth,"  which,  with  noble  courage,  he 
compelled  the  mob  to  hear.  But  one  man  could  not  redeem 
a  national  dishonor.  It  was  such,  and  such  it  was  felt  to  be. 
Men,  therefore,  of  elevated  natures,  and  men  of  gentle  pacific 
natures,  equally  revolted  from  a  trade  of  lies,  as  regarded  the 
audience,  and  of  strife,  as  regarded  the  competitors.  There 
remained  the  one  other  pursuit  of  scenical  poetry;  and  it 
hardly  needs  to  be  said  what  crowding  there  was  amongst 
all  the  energetic  minds  of  Athens  into  one  or  other  of  these 
pursuits :  the  one  for  the  unworldly  and  idealizing,  the  other 
for  the  coarsely  ambitious.  These,  therefore,  became  the  two 
quasi  professions  of  Athens,  and  at  the  same  time,  in  a  sense 
more  exclusive  than  can  now  be  true  of  our  professions, 
became  the  sole  means  of  publication  for  truth  of  any  class, 
and  a  publication  by  many  degrees  more  certain,  more 
extensive,  and  more  immediate,  than  ours  by  the  press. 

The  Athenian  theatre  published  an  edition  of  thirty  thou- 
sand copies  in  one  day,  enabling,  in  effect,  every  male  citizen 
capable  of  attending,  from  the  age  of  twenty  to  sixty,  together 
with  many  thousands  of  domiciled  ahens,  to  read  the  drama, 
with  the  fullest  understanding  of  its  sense  and  poetic  force  that 
could  be  effected  by  natural  powers  of  voice  and  action, 
combined  with  all  possible  auxiliaries  of  art,  of  music,  of 
pantomimic  dancing,  and  the  whole  carried  home  to  the  heart 
by  visible  and  audible  sympathy  in  excess.  This,  but  in  a  very 
inferior  form  as  regarded  the  adjuncts  of  art,  and  the  scale  of 
the  theatre,  and  the  mise  en  scene,  was  precisely  the  ad- 
vantage of  Charles  I  for  appreciating  Shakespeare. 

It  was  a  standing  reproach  of  the  Puritans,  adopted  even 
by  Milton,  a  leaden  shaft  feathered  and  made  buoyant  by  his 


DE   QUINCEY  243 

wit,  that  the  King  had  adopted  that  stage  poet  as  the  com- 
panion of  his  closet  retirements.  So  it  would  have  been  a  pity 
if  these  malignant  persecutors  of  the  royal  solitude  should 
have  been  liars  as  well  as  fanatics.  Doubtless,  even  when 
king,  and  in  his  afflictions,  this  storm-vexed  man  did  read 
Shakespeare.  But  that  was  not  the  original  way  in  which  he 
acquired  his  acquaintance  with  the  poet.  A  Prince  of  Wales, 
what  between  pubhc  claims  and  social  claims,  linds  Httle  time 
for  reading  after  the  period  of  childhood,  —  that  is,  at  any 
period  when  he  can  comprehend  a  great  poet.  And  it  was  as 
Prince  of  Wales  that  Charles  prosecuted  his  studies  of  Shake- 
speare. He  saw  continually  at  Whitehall,  personated  by  the 
best  actors  of  the  time,  illustrated  by  the  stage  management, 
and  assisted  by  the  mechanic  displays  of  Inigo  Jones,  all  the 
principal  dramas  of  Shakespeare  actually  performed.  That 
was  publication  with  an  Athenian  advantage.  A  thousand 
copies  of  a  book  may  be  brought  into  public  libraries,  and  not 
one  of  them  opened.  But  the  three  thousand  copies  of  a  play 
which  Drury  Lane  used  to  publish  in  one  night  were  in  the 
most  literal  sense  as  well  as  in  spirit  read, — properly  punc- 
tuated by  the  speakers,  made  intelligible  by  voice  and  action 
endowed  with  life  and  emphasis:  in  short,  on  each  successive 
performance,  a  very  large  edition  of  a  fine  tragedy  was  pub- 
lished in  the  most  impressive  sense  of  publication,  —  not 
merely  with  accuracy,  but  with  a  mimic  reality  that  forbade 
all  forgetting,  and  was  liable  to  no  inattention. 

Now,  if  Drury  Lane  pubhshed  a  drama  for  Shakespeare 
by  three  thousand  copies  in  one  night,^  the  Athenian  theatre 
published  ten  times  that  amount  for  Sophocles.  And  this 
mode  of  publication  in  Athens,  not  cooperating  (as  in  modern 
times)  with  other  modes,  but  standing  out  in  solitary  con- 
spicuous relief,  gave  an  artificial  bounty  upon  that  one  mode 
of  poetic  composition,  as  the  hustings  did  upon  one  mode 


244  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  prose  composition.  And  those  two  modes,  being  thus 
cultivated  to  the  utter  exclusion  of  others  which  did  not 
benefit  by  that  bounty  of  publication,  gave  an  unnatural  bias 
to  the  national  style,  determined  in  effect  upon  too  narrow 
a  scale  the  operative  ideal  of  composition,  and  finally  made 
the  dramatic  artist  and  the  mob  orator  the  two  sole  intellectual 
professions  for  Athens.  Hence  came  a  great  limitation  of 
style  in  practice;  and  hence,  secondly,  for  reasons  connected 
with  these  two  modes  of  composition,  a  general  neglect  of 
style  as  a  didactic  theory. 

*  Compare  above,  pp.  52-53. 

^  De  Quincey  has  in  mind  the  poetry  of  Wordsworth. 
'  A  statement  to  which  mathematicians  might  demur. 

*  A  badly  constructed  sentence,  meriting  the  censure  of  Schopenhauer 
(see  below,  p.  267). 

^  As  Masson  points  out,  "  Drury  Lane  was  not  the  great  theatrical  centre 
of  the  metropolis  till  after  the  Restoration."  "It  was  at  the  Blackfriars  and 
the  Glohe  .  .  .  that  Shakespeare's  plays  were  first  published  in  his  own  life- 
time." 


THOREAU  245 

XI 

HENRY  DAVID    THOREAU    (1817-1862) 
[On  Style]*    (1849) 

[From  A  Week  on  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  Boston  and  New 
York  (Houghton,  Mifflin),  1893  (pp.  130-137). 

A  Week,  etc.,  the  earlier  of  the  two  works  published  by 
Thorcau  himself,  is,  like  his  posthumous  works,  based  upon 
his  private  journals  and  memoranda.  His  journal  of  a  trip 
down  the  Concord  and  Merrimack  (x\ugust  31 -Septem- 
ber 6,  1839)  Thorcau  elaborated  at  his  hermitage  by 
Walden  Pond,  whither  he  retired  in  1845.  He  finished  his 
manuscript  presumably  before  March,  1847,  ^^^  published 
the  book  at  his  own  expense,  in  1849.  The  selection  offered 
here  is  from  Sunday  (September  i,  1839);  being  easily  de- 
tached from  its  context,  it  makes  by  itself  a  definite  and 
coherent  excerpt. 

It  bears  all  the  marks  of  conscientious  literary  workman- 
ship. Thoreau's  style,  according  to  Lowell,  "  is  compact," 
and  his  language  has  "  an  antique  purity  like  wine  grown 
colorless  with  age."  "  I  thought,"  said  Thoreau  of  his  first 
book,  "  that  it  had  little  of  the  atmosphere  of  the  house 
about  it,  but  it  might  have  been  written  wholly,  as  in  fact  it 
was  to  a  great  extent,  out-of-doors."  See  also  the  impressions 
of  William  EUery  Channing  in  Thoreau,  The  Poet-Naturalist 
(ed.  F.  B.  Sanborn,  1902),  pp.  229-231,  234,  242.] 

Enough  has  been  said  in  these  days  of  the  charm  of  fluent 
writing.  We  hear  it  complained  of  some  works  of  genius 
that  they  have  fine  thoughts,  but  are  irregular  and  have  no 
flow.  But  even  the  mountain  peaks  in  the  horizon  are,  to 
the  eye  of  science,  ])arts  of  one  range.     We  should  consider 

*  This  selection  is  printed  by  permission  of  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin, 
&  Co.,  and  by  special  arrangement  with  them  as  the  authorized  publishers 
of  Thoreau's  Works. 


246  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

that  the  flow  of  thought  is  more  h'kc  a  tidal  wave  than  a  prone 
river,  and  is  the  result  of  a  celestial  influence,  not  of  any 
declivity  in  its  channel.  The  river  flows  because  it  runs  down 
hill,  and  flows  the  faster,  the  faster  it  descends.  The  reader 
who  expects  to  float  downstream  for  the  whole  voyage  may 
well  complain  of  nauseating  swells  and  choppings  of  the  sea 
when  his  frail  shore  craft  gets  amidst  the  billows  of  the  ocean 
stream,  which  flows  as  much  to  sun  and  moon  as  lesser 
streams  to  it.  But  if  we  would  appreciate  the  flow  that  is  in 
these  books,  we  must  expect  to  feel  it  rise  from  the  page 
like  an  exhalation,  and  wash  away  our  critical  brains  like 
burr  millstones,  flowing  to  higher  levels  above  and  behind 
ourselves.  There  is  many  a  book  which  ripples  on  hke  a 
freshet,  and  flows  as  glibly  as  a  mill-stream  sucking  under  a 
causeway;  and  when  their  authors  are  in  the  full  tide  of  their 
discourse,  Pythagoras  and  Plato  and  Jamblichus  halt  beside 
them.  Their  long,  stringy,  shmy  sentences  are  of  that  con- 
sistency that  they  naturally  flow  and  run  together.  They  read 
as  if  written  for  mihtary  men,  for  men  of  business,  there  is  such 
a  dispatch  in  them.  Compared  with  these,  the  grave  thinkers 
and  philosophers  seem  not  to  have  got  their  swaddling- 
clothes  off;  they  are  slower  than  a  Roman  army  in  its  march, 
the  rear  camping  to-night  where  the  van  camped  last  night. 
The  wise  Jamblichus  eddies  and  gleams  like  a  watery  slough. 

"  How  many  thousands  never  heard  the  name 
Of  Sidney,  or  of  Spenser,  or  their  books? 
And  yet  brave  fellows,  and  presume  of  fame, 

And  seem  to  bear  down  all  the  world  with  looks." ' 

The  ready  writer  seizes  the  pen  and  shouts  "  Forward ! 
Alamo  and  Fanning  ! "  and  after  rolls  the  tide  of  war.  The 
very  walls  and  fences  seem  to  travel.  But  the  most  rapid 
trot  is  no  flow  after  all;  and  thither,  reader,  you  and  I,  at 
least,  will  not  follow. 


THOREA  U  247 

A  perfectly  healthy  sentence,  it  is  true,  is  extremely  rare. 
For  the  most  part  we  miss  the  hue  and  fragrance  of  the 
thought;  as  if  we  could  be  satisfied  with  the  dews  of  the 
morning  or  evening  without  their  colors,  or  the  heavens  with- 
out their  azure.  The  most  attractive  sentences  are,  perhaps, 
not  the  wisest,  but  the  surest  and  roundest.  They  are  spoken 
firmly  and  conclusively,  as  if  the  speaker  had  a  right  to  know 
what  he  says,  and  if  not  wise,  they  have  at  least  been  well 
learned.  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  might  well  be  studied,  if  only 
for  the  excellence  of  his  style,  for  he  is  remarkable  in  the 
midst  of  so  many  masters.  There  is  a  natural  emphasis  in 
his  style,  Hke  a  man's  tread,  and  a  breathing  space  between 
the  sentences,  which  the  best  of  modern  writing  does  not 
furnish.  His  chapters  are  like  English  parks,  or  say  rather 
like  a  Western  forest,  where  the  larger  growth  keeps  down 
the  underwood,  and  one  may  ride  on  horseback  through  the 
openings.  All  the  distinguished  writers  of  that  period  possess 
a  greater  vigor  and  naturalness  than  the  more  modern,^  — 
for  it  is  allowed  to  slander  our  own  time,  —  and  when  we 
read  a  quotation  from  one  of  them  in  the  midst  of  a  modern 
author,  we  seem  to  have  come  suddenly  upon  a  greener 
ground,  a  greater  depth  and  strength  of  soil.  It  is  as  if  a 
green  bough  were  laid  across  the  page,  and  we  are  refreshed 
as  by  the  sight  of  fresh  grass  in  midwinter  or  early  spring. 
You  have  constantly  the  warrant  of  life  and  experience  in 
what  you  read.  The  little  that  is  said  is  eked  out  by  implica- 
tion of  the  much  that  was  done.  The  sentences  are  ver- 
durous and  blooming  as  evergreen  and  fiowers,  because  they 
are  rooted  in  fact  and  experience,  but  our  false  and  florid 
sentences  have  only  the  tints  of  flowers  without  their  sap  or 
roots.  All  men  are  really  most  attracted  by  the  beauty  of 
plain  speech,  and  they  even  write  in  a  florid  style  in  imita- 
tion of  this.    They  prefer  to  be  misunderstood  rather  than  to 


248  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

come  short  of  its  exuberance.  Hussein  EfTendi  praised  the 
epistolary  style  of  Ibrahim  Pasha  to  the  French  traveller 
Botta,^  because  of  "  the  difficulty  of  understanding  it;  there 
was,"  he  said,  "  but  one  person  at  Jidda  who  was  capable  of 
understanding  and  explaining  the  Pasha's  correspondence." 
A  man's  whole  life  is  taxed  for  the  least  thing  well  done.  It 
is  its  net  result.  Every  sentence  is  the  result  of  a  long  pro- 
bation. Where  shall  we  look  for  standard  English  but  to  the 
words  of  a  standard  man?  The  word  which  is  best  said 
came  nearest  to  not  being  spoken  at  all,  for  it  is  cousin  to  a 
deed  which  the  speaker  could  have  better  done.  Nay,  almost  it 
must  have  taken  the  place  of  a  deed  by  some  urgent  necessity, 
even  by  some  misfortune,  so  that  the  truest  writer  will  be  some 
captive  knight,  after  all.  And  perhaps  the  fates  had  such  a 
design,  when,  having  stored  Raleigh  so  richly  with  the  sub- 
stance of  life  and  experience,  they  made  him  a  fast  prisoner, 
and  compelled  him  to  make  his  words  his  deeds,  and  transfer 
to  his  expression  the  emphasis  and  sincerity  of  his  action. 

Men  have  a  respect  for  scholarship  and  learning  greatly 
out  of  proportion  to  the  use  they  commonly  serve.  We  are 
amused  to  read  how  Ben  Jonson  engaged  that  the  dull 
masks  with  which  the  royal  family  and  nobility  were  to  be 
entertained  should  be  "  grounded  upon  antiquity  and  sohd 
learning."  Can  there  be  any  greater  reproach  than  an  idle 
learning?  Learn  to  split  wood,  at  least.  The  necessity  of 
labor  and  conversation  with  many  men  and  things,  to  the 
scholar  is  rarely  well  remembered;  steady  labor  with  the 
hands,  which  engrosses  the  attention  also,  is  unquestionably 
the  best  method  of  removing  ])alaver  and  sentimentahty  out 
of  one's  style,  both  of  s])eaking  and  writing.  If  he  has 
worked  hard  from  morning  till  night,  though  he  may  have 
grieved  that  he  could  not  be  watcliing  the  train  of  his  thoughts 
during  that  time,  yet  the  few  hasty  lines  which  at  evening 


THOREA  U  249 

record  his  day's  experience  will  be  more  musical  and  true 
than  his  freest  but  idle  fancy  could  have  furnished.  Surely 
the  writer  is  to  address  a  world  of  laborers,  and  such  there- 
fore must  be  his  own  discipline.  He  will  not  idly  dance  at 
his  work  who  has  wood  to  cut  and  cord  before  nightfall  in 
the  short  days  of  winter;  but  every  stroke  will  be  husbanded, 
and  ring  soberly  through  the  wood;  and  so  will  the  strokes 
of  that  scholar's  pen,  which  at  evening  record  the  story  of 

the  day,  ring  soberly,  yet  cheerily,  on  the  ear  of  the  reader,^^ 

long  after  the  echoes  of  his  axe  have  died  away.    The  scholar_^ 
may  be  sure  that  he  writes  the  tougher  truth  for  the  calluses    7* 
on  his  palms.    They  give  firmness  to  the  sentence.     Indeed,  ^---^ 
the  mind  never  makes  a  great  and  successful  effort,  without  ,-^ 
a  corresponding  energy  of  the  body.     We  are  often  struck    1 
by  the  force  and  precision  of  style  to  which  hard-werking^r^ 
men,  unpractised  in  writing,  easily  attain  when  required  to  I 
make  the  effort.     As  if  plainness  and  vigor  and  sincerity,  thet, 
ornaments  of  style,  were  better  learned  on  the  farm  and  in 
the  workshop  than  in  the  schools.    The  sentences  written  by  \ 
such  rude  hands  are  nervous  and  tough,  like  hardened  thongs,  j>. 
the  sinews  of  the  deer,  or  the  roots  of  the  pine.     As  for  th€L\ 
graces  of  expression,  a  great  thought  is  never  found  in  a 
mean  dress;    but  though   it  proceed  from   the  hps  of  the 
Wolofs,*  the  nine  Muses  and  the  three  Graces  will  have  con- 
spired to  clothe  it  in  fit  phrase.     Its  education  has  always 
been  hberal,  and  its  implied  wit  can  endow  a  college.    The 
world,  which  the  Greeks  called  Beauty,  has  been  made  such 
by  being  gradually  divested  of  every  ornament  which  was  not 
fitted  to  endure.    The  Sibyl,  "  speaking  with  inspired  mouth, 
smileless,  inornate,  and  unperfumed,  pierces  through  cen- 
turies by  the  power  of  the  god."    The  scholar  might  fre- 
quently emulate  the  propriety  and  emphasis  of  the  farmer's 
call  to  his  team,  and  confess  that  if  that  were  written  it  would 


2  50  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

surpass  his  labored  sentences.  Whose  are  the  truly  labored 
sentences?  From  the  weak  and  flimsy  periods  of  the  poli- 
tician and  literary  man,  we  are  glad  to  turn  even  to  the  de- 
scription of  work,  the  simple  record  of  the  month's  labor  in 
the  farmer's  almanac,  to  restore  our  tone  and  spirits.  A 
sentence  should  read  as  if  its  author,  had  he  held  a  plough 
instead  of  a  pen,  could  have  drawn  a  furrow  deep  and  straight 
to  the  end.  The  scholar  requires  hard  and  serious  labor  to 
give  an  impetus  to  his  thought.  He  will  learn  to  grasp  the 
pen  firmly  so,  and  wield  it  gracefully  and  effectively,  as  an 
axe  or  a  sword.  When  we  consider  the  weak  and  nerveless 
periods  of  some  literary  men,  who  perchance  in  feet  and 
inches  come  up  to  the  standard  of  their  race,  and  are  not 
deficient  in  girth  also,  we  are  amazed  at  the  immense  sacrifice 
of  thews  and  sinews.  What !  these  proportions,  —  these 
bones,  —  and  this  their  work !  Hands  which  could  have 
felled  an  ox  have  hewed  this  fragile  matter  which  would  not 
have  tasked  a  lady's  fingers !  Can  this  be  a  stalwart  man's 
work,  who  has  a  marrow  in  his  back  and  a  tendon  Achilles 
in  his  heel  ?  They  who  set  up  the  blocks  of  Stonehenge  did 
somewhat,  if  they  only  laid  out  their  strength  for  once,  and 
stretched  themselves. 

'  Samuel  Daniel. 

^  Compare  Coleridge,  above,  p.  205. 

^  Paolo  Emilio  Botta  (1802-1870),  of  Italian  extraction,  an  oriental  trav- 
eller and  Assyriologist. 

^"Wolofs"  —  better  "Yolof"  {i.e.  "Speakers");  a  negro  race  of  the 
western  Sudan,  whose  language  is  "the  medium  of  communication  through- 
out Senegambia."  Thoreau  may  have  been  acquainted  with  De  Roger's 
Recherches  philosophiques  siir  la  langue  ouloje,  Paris,  1829. 


SCI/ OPEN  HA  UER  2  5 1 

XII 

ARTHUR  SCHOPENHAUER  (1788-1860) 

On    Style*   (1851) 

[From  The  Art  oj  Literature,  A  Series  of  Essays  by  Arthur  Schopenhauer, 
Selected  and  Translated,  etc.,  by  T.  Bailey  Saunders,  M.A.,  London  (Sonnen- 
schein),  1904  (pp.  17-36). 

Mr.  Saunders's  work,  which  first  appeared  in  1891,  is  a  free 
arrangement  of  certain  chapters  in  Schopenhauer's  Parerga 
(1851),  with  a  title  "invented"  by  the  translator.  "The 
essays  on  Authorship  and  Style  .  .  .  are  taken  direct  from 
the  chapter  headed  Ueber  Schrijtstellerei  und  Stil.'"  Mr. 
Saunders's  free  handling  of  his  original,  entirely  justified  by 
his  purpose,  has  made  readable  and  unified  English  of  Ger- 
man that  is  in  the  highest  degree  readable,  but  not  always 
so  compact.  Schopenhauer's  style  is  discussed  with  admira- 
tion, and  with  understanding  also,  in  Kuno  Fischer's  Ge- 
schichte  der  neueren  Philosophie  (Vol.8,  1893,  Schopenhauer  — 
especially  pp.  491-495).  More  sweeping  still  is  the  praise 
given  by  Nietzsche  {Schopenhauer  ah  Erzieher,  pp.  14-18  in 
Vol.  2  of  Unzeitgemdsse  Betrachtungen,  Leipzig,  1893).] 

Style  is  the  physiognomy  of  the  mind,  and  a  safer  index  to 
character  than  the  face.  To  imitate  another  man's  style  is 
like  wearing  a  mask,  which,  be  it  never  so  fine,  is  not  long  in 
arousing  disgust  and  abhorrence,  because  it  is  lifeless;  so 
that  even  the  ugliest  living  face  is  better.*  Hence  those  who 
write  in  Latin  and  copy  the  manner  of  ancient  authors,  may 
be  said  to  speak  through  a  mask;  the  reader,  it  is  true,  hears 
what  they  say,  but  he  cannot  observe  their  physiognomy  too; 
he  cannot  see  their  style.  With  the  Latin  works  of  writers 
who  think  for  themselves,  the  case  is  different,  and  their  style 

*  With  the  permission  of  Messrs.  Swan  Sonnenschein  8j  Co.,  Lim., 
London. 


252  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

is  visible;  writers,  I  mean,  who  have  not  condescended  to 
any  sort  of  imitation,  such  as  Scotus  Erigena,  Petrarch,  Bacon, 
Descartes,  Spinoza,  and  many  others.  And  affectation  in 
style  is  like  making  grimaces.  Further,  the  language  in 
which  a  man  writes  is  the  physiognomy  of  the  nation  to  which 
he  belongs;  and  here  there  are  many  hard  and  fast  differ- 
ences, beginning  from  the  language  of  the  Greeks,  down  to 
that  of  the  Caribbean  islanders. 

To  form  a  provisional  estimate  of  the  value  of  a  writer's 
productions,  it  is  not  directly  necessary  to  know  the  subject 
on  which  he  has  thought,  or  what  it  is  that  he  has  said  about 
it;  that  would  imply  a  perusal  of  all  his  works.  It  will  be 
enough,  in  the  main,  to  know  how  he  has  thought.  This, 
which  means  the  essential  temper  or  general  quahty  of  his 
mind,  may  be  precisely  determined  by  his  style.  A  man's 
style  shows  the  formal  nature  of  all  his  thoughts  —  the  formal 
nature  which  can  never  change,  be  the  subject  or  the  character 
of  his  thoughts  what  it  may :  it  is,  as  it  were,  the  dough  out 
of  which  all  the  contents  of  his  mind  are  kneaded.  When 
Eulenspiegel  was  asked  how  long  it  would  take  to  walk  to 
the  next  village,  he  gave  the  seemingly  incongruous  answer: 
Walk.  He  wanted  to  find  out  by  the  man's  pace  the  distance 
he  would  cover  in  a  given  time.  In  the  same  way,  when  I 
have  read  a  few  pages  of  an  author,  I  know  fairly  well  how 
far  he  can  bring  me. 

Every  mediocre  writer  tries  to  mask  his  own  natural  style, 
because  in  his  heart  he  knows  the  truth  of  what  I  am  say- 
ing.^ He  is  thus  forced,  at  the  outset,  to  give  up  any  attempt 
at  being  frank  or  naive  —  a  privilege  which  is  thereby  re- 
served for  superior  minds,  conscious  of  their  own  worth,  and 
therefore  sure  of  themselves.  What  I  mean  is  that  these 
everyday  writers  are  absolutely  unable  to  resolve  upon  writing 
just  as  they  think;  because  they  have  a  notion  that,  were 


ECHO  PEN  HA  UER  253 

they  to  do  so,  their  work  might  possibly  look  very  childish 
and  simple.  For  all  that,  it  would  not  be  without  its  value. 
If  they  would  only  go  honestly  to  work,  and  say,  quite  simply, 
the  things  they  have  really  thought,  and  just  as  they  have 
thought  them,  these  writers  would  be  readable  and,  within 
their  own  proper  sphere,  even  instructive. 

But  instead  of  that,  they  try  to  make  the  reader  believe 
that  their  thoughts  have  gone  much  further  and  deeper  than 
is  really  the  case.  They  say  what  they  have  to  say  in  long 
sentences  that  wind  about  in  a  forced  and  unnatural  way; 
they  coin  new  words  and  write  prolix  periods  which  go  round 
and  round  the  thought  and  wrap  it  up  in  a  sort  of  disguise- 
They  tremble  between  the  two  separate  aims  of  communicat- 
ing what  they  want  to  say  and  of  concealing  it.  Their  object 
is  to  dress  it  up  so  that  it  may  look  learned  or  deep,  in  order 
to  give  people  the  impression  that  there  is  very  much  more  in 
it  than  for  the  moment  meets  the  eye.  They  either  jot  down 
their  thoughts  bit  by  bit,  in  short,  ambiguous,  and  para- 
doxical sentences,  which  apparently  mean  much  more  than 
they  say,  —  of  this  kind  of  writing  Schelling's  treatises  on 
natural  philosophy  are  a  splendid  instance;  or  else  they  hold 
forth  with  a  deluge  of  words  and  the  most  intolerable  diffusive- 
ness, as  though  no  end  of  fuss  were  necessary  to  make  the 
reader  understand  the  deep  meaning  of  their  sentences, 
whereas  it  is  some  quite  simple  if  not  actually  trivial  idea,  — 
examples  of  which  may  be  found  in  plenty  in  the  popular 
works  of  Fichte,  and  the  philosophical  manuals  of  a  hundred 
other  miserable  dunces  not  worth  mentioning;  or,  again,  they 
try  to  write  in  some  particular  style  which  they  have  been 
pleased  to  take  up  and  think  very  grand,  a  style,  for  example, 
par  excellence  profound  and  scientific,  where  the  reader  is 
tormented  to  death  by  the  narcotic  effect  of  long-spun  periods 
without  a  single  idea  in  them,  —  such  as  are  furnished  in  a 


254  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

special  measure  by  those  most  impudent  of  all  mortals,  the 
Hegelians;  *  or  it  may  be  that  it  is  an  intellectual  style  they 
have  striven  after,  where  it  seems  as  though  their  object  were 
to  go  crazy  altogether;  and  so  on  in  many  other  cases.  All 
these  endeavors  to  put  off  the  nascetur  ridiculus  mus  —  to 
avoid  showing  the  funny  little  creature  that  is  born  after 
such  mighty  throes  —  often  make  it  difficult  to  know  what  it 
is  that  they  really  mean.  And  then,  too,  they  write  down 
words,  nay,  even  whole  sentences,  without  attaching  any 
meaning  to  them  themselves,  but  in  the  hope  that  someone 
else  will  get  sense  out  of  them. 

And  what  is  at  the  bottom  of  all  this  ?  Nothing  but  the 
untiring  effort  to  sell  words  for  thoughts;  a  mode  of  mer- 
chandise that  is  always  trying  to  make  fresh  openings  for 
itself,  and  by  means  of  odd  expressions,  turns  of  phrase,  and 
combinations  of  every  sort,  whether  new  or  used  in  a  new 
sense,  to  produce  the  appearance  of  intellect  in  order  to  make 
up  for  the  very  painfully  felt  lack  of  it. 

It  is  amusing  to  see  how  writers  with  this  object  in  view 
will  attempt  first  one  mannerism  and  then  another,  as  though 
they  were  putting  on  the  mask  of  intellect !  This  mask  may 
possibly  deceive  the  inexperienced  for  a  while,  until  it  is 
seen  to  be  a  dead  thing,  with  no  life  in  it  at  all:  it  is  then 
laughed  at  and  exchanged  for  another.  Such  an  author  will 
at  one  moment  write  in  a  dithyrambic  vein,  as  though  he 
were  tipsy;  at  another,  nay,  on  the  very  next  page,  he  will 
be  pompous,  severe,  profoundly  learned  and  prolix,  stumbling 
on  in  the  most  cumbrous  way,  and  chopping  up  everything 
very  small;  like  the  late  Christian  Wolf,  only  in  a  modem 
dress.  I^ongest  of  all  lasts  the  mask  of  unintclligibility;  but 
this  is  only  in  Germany,  whither  it  was  introduced  ])y  Fichte, 

*  In  their  Hegel-gazette,  commonly  known  as  Jahrbucher  der  wissen- 
schaftlichen  Litteratur. 


SCHOPENHA  UER  255 

perfected  by  Schelling,  and  carried  to  its  highest  pitch  in 
Hegel  —  always  with  the  best  results. 

And  yet  nothing  is  easier  than  to  write  so  that  no  one 
can  understand;  just  as,  contrarily,  nothing  is  more  dif- 
ficult than  to  express  deep  things  in  such  a  way  that  every- 
one must  necessarily  grasp  them.  All  the  arts  and  tricks 
I  have  been  mentioning  are  rendered  superfluous  if  the  author 
really  has  any  brains;  for  that  allows  him  to  show  himself  as 
he  is,  and  confirms  to  all  time  Horace's  maxim  that  good 
sense  is  the  source  and  origin  of  good  style :  — 

Scribendi  rede  sapere  est  et  principium  et  jons.^ 

But  those  authors  I  have  named  are  like  certain  workers 
in  metal,  who  try  a  hundred  different  compounds  to  take 
the  place  of  gold  —  the  only  metal  which  can  never  have  any 
substitute.  Rather  than  do  that,  there  is  nothing  against 
which  a  writer  should  be  more  upon  his  guard  than  the 
manifest  endeavor  to  exhibit  more  intellect  than  he  really  has; 
because  this  makes  the  reader  suspect  that  he  possesses  very 
little;  since  it  is  always  the  case  that  if  a  man  affects  any- 
thing, whatever  it  may  be,  it  is  just  there  that  he  is  deficient. 
That  is  why  it  is  praise  to  an  author  to  say  that  he  is  naive; 
it  means  that  he  need  not  shrink  from  showing  himself  as  he 
is.  Generally  speaking,  to  be  naive  is  to  be  attractive;  while 
lack  of  naturalness  is  everywhere  repulsive.  As  a  matter 
of  fact  we  find  that  every  really  great  writer  tries  to  express 
his  thoughts  as  purely,  clearly,  definitely,  and  shortly  as  pos- 
sible. Simplicity  has  always  been  held  to  be  a  mark  of 
truth;  it  is  also  a  mark  of  genius.  Style  receives  its  beauty 
from  the  thought  it  expresses;  but  with  sham-thinkers  the 
thoughts  are  supposed  to  be  fine  because  of  the  style.  Style  is 
nothing  but  the  mere  silhouette  of  thought;  and  an  obscure 
or  bad  style  means  a  dull  or  confused  brain. 


256  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

The  first  rule,  then,  for  a  good  style  is  that  the  author  should 
have  something  to  say;  nay,  this  is  in  itself  almost  all  that  is 
necessary.  Ah,  how  much  it  means !  The  neglect  of  this 
rule  is  a  fundamental  trait  in  the  philosophical  writing,  and, 
in  fact,  in  all  the  reflective  literature,  of  my  country,  more 
especially  since  Fichte.  These  writers  all  let  it  be  seen  that 
they  want  to  appear  as  though  they  had  something  to  say; 
whereas  they  have  nothing  to  say.  Writing  of  this  kind  was 
brought  in  by  the  pseudo-philosophers  at  the  Universities,  and 
now  it  is  current  everywhere,  even  among  the  first  hterary 
notabilities  of  the  age.  It  is  the  mother  of  that  strained  and 
vague  style,  where  there  seem  to  be  two  or  even  more  mean- 
ings in  the  sentence ;  also  of  that  prolix  and  cumbrous  manner 
of  expression,  called  le  stile  empese;  again,  of  that  mere  waste 
of  words  which  consists  in  pouring  them  out  like  a  flood; 
finally,  of  that  trick  of  concealing  the  direst  poverty  of  thought 
under  a  farrago  of  never-ending  chatter,  which  clacks  away 
like  a  windmill  and  quite  stupefies  one  —  stuff  which  a  man 
may  read  for  hours  together  without  getting  hold  of  a  single 
clearly  expressed  and  definite  idea.*  However,  people  are 
easy-going,  and  they  have  formed  the  habit  of  reading  page 
upon  page  of  all  sorts  of  such  verbiage,  without  having  any 
particular  idea  of  what  the  author  really  means.  They  fancy 
it  is  all  as  it  should  be,  and  fail  to  discover  that  he  is  writing 
simply  for  writing's  sake. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  good  author,  fertile  in  ideas,  soon 
wins  his  reader's  confidence  that,  when  he  writes,  he  has  really 
and  truly  something  to  say;  and  this  gives  the  intelligent  reader 
patience  to  follow  him  with  attention.  Such  an  author,  just 
because  he  really  has  something  to  say,  will  never  fail  to 

*  Select  examples  of  the  art  of  writing  in  this  style  are  to  be  found  al- 
most passim  in  the  Jahrbiicher  published  at  Halle,  afterwards  called  the 
Deutschen  Jahrbiicher. 


SCHOPENHA  UER  257 

express  himself  in  the  simplest  and  most  straightforward 
manner;  because  his  object  is  to  awake  the  very  same  thought 
in  the  reader  that  he  has  in  himself,  and  no  other.  So  he 
will  be  able  to  affimi  with  Boilcau  that  his  thoughts  are  every- 
where open  to  the  light  of  day,  and  that  his  verse  always  says 
something,  whether  it  says  it  well  or  ill:  — 

Ma  pciisce  an  grand  jour  partoiU  s'ofjre  et  s'expose, 
Et  mon  vers,  hicn  on  mal,  dit  toujours  quelque  chose; 

while  of  the  writers  previously  described  it  may  be  asserted, 
in  the  words  of  the  same  poet,  that  they  talk  much  and  never 
say  anything  at  all  —  qui  pari  ant  beaucoup  ne  disent  jamais 
rien. 

Another  characteristic  of  such  writers  is  that  they  always 
avoid  a  positive  assertion  wherever  they  can  possibly  do  so, 
in  order  to  leave  a  loophole  for  escape  in  case  of  need.  Hence 
they  never  fail  to  choose  the  more  abstract  way  of  expressing 
themselves;  whereas  intelligent  people  use  the  more  concrete; 
because  the  latter  brings  things  more  within  the  range  of 
actual  demonstration,  which  is  the  source   of  all  evidence.* 

There  are  many  examples  proving  this  preference  for  ab- 
stract expression ;  and  a  particularly  ridiculous  one  is  afforded 
by  the  use  of  the  verb  to  condition  in  the  sense  of  to  cause  or  to 
produce.  People  say  to  condition  something  instead  of  to 
cause  it,  because  being  abstract  and  indefinite  it  says  less; 
it  afhrms  that  A  cannot  happen  without  B,  instead  of  that  A 
is  caused  by  B.  A  back  door  is  always  left  open;  and  this 
suits  people  whose  secret  knowledge  of  their  own  incapacity 
inspires  them  with  a  perpetual  terror  of  all  positive  assertion; 
while  with  other  people  it  is  merely  the  effect  of  that  tendency 
by  which  everything  that  is  stupid  in  literature  or  bad  in  life 
is  immediately  imitated  —  a  fact  proved  in  either  case  by  the 
rapid  way  in  which  it  spreads.    The  Englishman  uses  his 


258  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

own  judgment  in  what  he  writes  as  well  as  in  what  he  does; 
but  there  is  no  nation  of  which  this  eulogy  is  less  true  than  of 
the  Germans.  The  consequence  of  this  state  of  things  is  that 
the  word  cause  has  of  late  almost  disappeared  from  the  lan- 
guage of  hterature,  and  people  talk  only  of  condition.  The 
fact  is  worth  mentioning  because  it  is  so  characteristically 
ridiculous. 

The  very  fact  that  these  commonplace  authors  are  never 
more  than  half  conscious  when  they  write,  would  be  enough 
to  account  for  their  dulness  of  mind  and  the  tedious  things 
they  produce.  I  say  they  are  only  half  conscious,  because 
they  really  do  not  themselves  understand  the  meaning  of  the 
words  they  use:  they  take  words  ready  made  and  commit 
them  to  memory.  Hence  when  they  write,  it  is  not  so  much 
words  as  whole  phrases  that  they  put  together  —  phrases 
banales.  This  is  the  explanation  of  that  palpable  lack  of 
clearly  expressed  thought  in  what  they  say.  The  fact  is  that 
they  do  not  possess  the  die  to  give  this  stamp  to  their  writing; 
clear  thought  of  their  own  is  just  what  they  have  not  got. 
And  what  do  we  find  in  its  place? — a  vague,  enigmatical 
intermixture  of  words,  current  phrases,  hackneyed  terms,  and 
fashionable  expressions.  The  result  is  that  the  foggy  stuff 
they  write  is  like  a  page  printed  with  very  old  type. 

On  the  other  hand,  an  intelligent  author  really  speaks 
to  us  when  he  writes,  and  that  is  why  he  is  able  to  rouse  our 
interest  and  commune  with  us.  It  is  the  intelligent  author 
alone  who  puts  individual  words  together  with  a  full  conscious- 
ness of  their  meaning,  and  chooses  them  with  deliberate 
design.  Consequently,  his  discourse  stands  to  that  of  the 
writer  described  above,  much  as  a  picture  that  has  been  really 
painted  to  one  that  has  been  produced  by  the  use  of  a  stencil. 
In  the  one  case,  every  word,  every  touch  of  the  brush,  has 
a  special  purpose;  in  the  other,  all  is  done  mechanically. 


SCHOPENHA  UER  259 

The  same  distinction  may  be  observed  in  music.  For  just 
as  Lichtenberg  says  that  Garrick's  soul  seemed  to  be  in  every 
muscle  in  his  body,  so  it  is  the  omnipresence  of  intellect  that 
always  and  everywhere  characterizes  the  work  of  genius. 

I  have  alluded  to  the  tediousness  which  marks  the  works 
of  these  writers;  and  in  this  connection  it  is  to  be  observed, 
generally,  that  tediousness  is  of  two  kinds:  objective  and 
subjective.  A  work  is  objectively  tedious  when  it  contains 
the  defect  in  question ;  that  is  to  say,  when  its  author  has  no 
perfectly  clear  thought  or  knowledge  to  communicate.  For 
if  a  man  has  any  clear  thought  or  knowledge  in  him,  his  aim 
will  be  to  communicate  it,  and  he  will  direct  his  energies 
to  this  end;  so  that  the  ideas  he  furnishes  are  everywhere 
clearly  expressed.  The  result  is  that  he  is  neither  diffuse,  nor 
unmeaning,  nor  confused,  and  consequently  not  tedious. 
In  such  a  case,  even  though  the  author  is  at  bottom  in  error, 
the  error  is  at  any  rate  clearly  worked  out  and  well  thought 
over,  so  that  it  is  at  least  formally  correct;  and  thus  some 
value  always  attaches  to  the  work.  But  for  the  same  reason 
a  work  that  is  objectively  tedious  is  at  all  times  devoid  of  any 
value  whatever. 

The  other  kind  of  tediousness  is  only  relative:  a  reader 
may  find  a  work  dull  because  he  has  no  interest  in  the  question 
treated  of  in  it,  and  this  means  that  his  intellect  is  restricted. 
The  best  work  may,  therefore,  be  tedious  subjectively,  tedious, 
I  mean,  to  this  or  that  particular  person;  just  as,  contrarily, 
the  worst  work  may  be  subjectively  engrossing  to  this  or  that 
particular  person  who  has  an  interest  in  the  question  treated 
of,  or  in  the  writer  of  the  book. 

It  would  generally  serve  writers  in  good  stead  if  they  would 
see  that,  whilst  a  man  should,  if  possible,  think  like  a  great 
genius,  he  should  talk  the  same  language  as  everyone  else. 
Authors  should  use  common  words  to  say  uncommon  things. 


260  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

But  they  do  just  the  opposite.  We  find  them  trying  to  wrap 
up  trivial  ideas  in  grand  words,  and  to  clothe  their  very  or- 
dinary thoughts  in  the  most  extraordinary  phrases,  the  most 
far-fetched,  unnatural,  and  out-of-tlie-way  expressions. 
Their  sentences  perpetually  stalk  about  on  stills.  They  take 
so  much  pleasure  in  bombast,  and  write  in  such  a  high- 
flown,  bloated,  affected,  hyperbolical,  and  acrobatic  ^  style 
that  their  prototype  is  Ancient  Pistol,  whom  his  friend  Fal- 
staff  once  impatiently  told  to  say  what  he  had  to  say  like  a 
man  o]  this  world.^ 

There  is  no  expression  in  any  other  language  exactly 
answering  to  the  French  stile  empese;  but  the  thing  itself 
exists  all  the  more  often.  When  associated  with  affectation, 
it  is  in  literature  what  assumption  of  dignity,  grand  airs,  and 
primness  arc  in  society,  and  equally  intolerable.  Dulness 
of  mind  is  fond  of  donning  this  dress;  just  as  in  ordinary  hfe 
it  is  stupid  people  who  hke  being  demure  and  formal. 

An  author  who  writes  in  the  prim  style  resembles  a  man 
who  dresses  himself  up  in  order  to  avoid  being  confounded 
or  put  on  the  same  level  with  the  mob  —  a  risk  never  run 
by  the  gentleman,  even  in  his  worst  clothes.  The  plebeian 
may  be  known  by  a  certain  showiness  of  attire  and  a  wish  to 
have  everything  spick  and  span;  and,  in  the  same  way,  the 
commonplace  person  is  betrayed  by  his  style. 

Nevertheless,  an  author  follows  a  false  aim  if  he  tries  to 
write  exactly  as  he  speaks.  There  is  no  style  of  writing  but 
should  have  a  certain  trace  of  kinship  with  the  epigrapkic  or 
monumental  style,  which  is,  indeed,  the  ancestor  of  all  styles. 
For  an  author  to  write  as  he  speaks  is  just  as  reprehensible 
as  the  opposite  fault,  to  speak  as  he  writes;  for  this  gives  a 
pedantic  effect  to  what  he  says,  and  at  the  same  time  makes 
him  hardly  intelligible. 

*  King  Henry  IV,  Part  II,  Act  v,  Sc.  3. 


SCHOPENHA  UER  26 1 

An  obscure  and  vague  manner  of  expression  is  always 
and  everywhere  a  very  bad  sign.  In  ninety-nine  cases  out  of 
a  hundred  it  comes  from  vagueness  of  thought;  and  this 
again  almost  always  means  that  there  is  something  radically 
wrong  and  incongruous  about  the  thought  itself  —  in  a  word, 
that  it  is  incorrect.  When  a  right  thought  springs  up  in  the 
mind,  it  strives  after  expression  and  is  not  long  in  reaching  it ; 
for  clear  thought  easily  finds  words  to  fit  it.  If  a  man  is 
capable  of  thinking  anything  at  all,  he  is  also  always  able  to 
express  it  in  clear,  intelligible,  and  unambiguous  terms. 
Those  writers  who  construct  difficult,  obscure,  involved,  and 
equivocal  sentences,  most  certainly  do  not  know  aright  what 
it  is  that  they  want  to  say :  they  have  only  a  dull  consciousness 
of  it,  which  is  still  in  the  stage  of  struggle  to  shape  itself  as 
thought.  Often,  indeed,  their  desire  is  to  conceal  from  them- 
selves and  others  that  they  really  have  nothing  at  all  to  say. 
They  wish  to  appear  to  know  what  they  do  not  know,  to  think 
what  they  do  not  think,  to  say  what  they  do  not  say.  If  a 
man  has  some  real  communication  to  make,  which  will  he 
choose — an  indistinct  or  a  clear  way  of  expressing  himself? 
Even  Quintihan  remarks  that  things  which  are  said  by  a 
highly  educated  man  are  often  easier  to  understand  and  much 
clearer;  and  that  the  less  educated  a  man  is,  the  more  ob- 
scurely he  will  write  —  plerumque  accidit  ut  jaciliora  sint  ad 
intelligendum  et  lucidiora  multo  qua  a  doctissimo  quoque 
dicuntur.  .  .  .  Erit  ergo  etlam  ohscurlor  quo  quisque  de- 
terior.^ 

An  author  should  avoid  enigmatical  phrases:  he  should 
know  whether  he  wants  to  say  a  thing  or  does  not  want  to  say 
it.  It  is  this  indecision  of  style  that  makes  so  many  writers 
insipid.  The  only  case  that  offers  an  exception  to  this  rule 
arises  when  it  is  necessary  to  make  a  remark  that  is  in  some 
way  improper. 


262  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

As  exaggeration  generally  produces  an  effect  the  opposite 
of  that  aimed  at;  so  words,  it  is  true,  serve  to  make  thought 
intelligible  —  but  only  up  to  a  certain  point.  If  words  are 
heaped  up  beyond  it,  the  thought  becomes  more  and  more 
obscure  again.  To  find  where  the  point  lies  is  the  problem 
of  style,  and  the  business  of  the  critical  faculty;  for  a  word 
too  much  always  defeats  its  purpose.  This  is  what  Voltaire 
means  when  he  says  that  the  adjective  is  the  enemy  of  the 
substantive.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  many  people  try  to  conceal 
their  poverty  of  thought  under  a  flood  of  verbiage. 

Accordingly,  let  all  redundancy  be  avoided,  all  stringing 
together  of  remarks  which  have  no  meaning  and  are  not 
worth  perusal.  A  writer  must  make  a  sparing  use  of  the 
reader's  time,  patience,  and  attention;  so  as  to  lead  him  to 
believe  that  his  author  writes  what  is  worth  careful  study,  and 
will  reward  the  time  spent  upon  it.  It  is  always  better  to 
omit  something  good  than  to  add  that  which  is  not  worth 
saying  at  all.  This  is  the  right  application  of  Hesiod's  maxim, 
trXeov  ijfiicrv  iravTot;  *  —  the  half  is  more  than  the  whole. 
Le  secret  pour  etre  ennuyeux,  c^est  de  tout  dire.  Therefore, 
if  possible,  the  quintessence  only !  mere  leading  thoughts ! 
nothing  that  the  reader  would  think  for  himself.  To  use 
many  words  to  communicate  few  thoughts  is  everywhere  the 
unmistakable  sign  of  mediocrity.  To  gather  much  thought 
into  few  words  stamps  the  man  of  genius. 

Truth  is  most  beautiful  undraped;  and  the  impression  it 
makes  is  deep  in  proportion  as  its  expression  has  been  simple. 
This  is  so,  partly  because  it  then  takes  unobstructed  possession 
of  the  hearer's  whole  soul,  and  leaves  him  no  by-thought  to 
distract  him ;  partly,  also,  because  he  feels  that  here  he  is  not 
being  corrupted  or  cheated  by  the  arts  of  rhetoric,  but  that 
all  the  effect  of  what  is  said  comes  from  the  thing  itself.     For 

*  Works  and  Days,  40. 


SCHOPENHA  UER  263 

instance,  what  declamation  on  the  vanity  of  human  existence 
could  ever  be  more  telling  than  the  words  of  Job? — Man  that 
is  horn  of  a  woman  hath  but  a  short  time  to  live  and  is  jull 
oj  misery.  He  comefh  up,  and  is  cut  down,  like  a  flower;  he 
fleeth  as  it  were  a  shadow,  and  never  continueth  in  one  stay. 

For  the  same  reason  Goethe's  naive  poetry  is  incomparably 
greater  than  Schiller's  rhetoric.  It  is  this,  again,  that  makes 
many  popular  songs  so  affecting.  As  in  architecture  an  excess 
of  decoration  is  to  be  avoided,  so  in  the  art  of  literature  a 
writer  must  guard  against  all  rhetorical  finery,  all  useless 
amphfication,  and  all  superfluity  of  expression  in  general;  in 
a  word,  he  must  strive  after  chastity  of  style.  Every  word 
that  can  be  spared  is  hurtful  if  it  remains.  The  law  of  sim- 
phcity  and  naivety  holds  good  of  all  fine  art;  for  it  is  quite 
possible  to  be  at  once  simple  and  sublime.    ' 

True  brevity  of  expression  consists  in  everywhere  saying 
only  what  is  worth  saying,  and  in  avoiding  tedious  detail 
about  things  which  everyone  can  supply  for  himself.  This 
involves  correct  discrimination  between  what  is  necessary 
and  what  is  superfluous.^  A  writer  should  never  be  brief  at 
the  expense  of  being  clear,  to  say  nothing  of  being  grammat- 
ical. It  shows  lamentable  want  of  judgment  to  weaken  the 
expression  of  a  thought,  or  to  stunt  the  meaning  of  a  period 
for  the  sake  of  using  a  few  words  less.  But  this  is  the  precise 
endeavor  of  that  false  brevity  nowadays  so  much  in  vogue, 
which  proceeds  by  leaving  out  useful  words  and  even  by 
sacrificing  grammar  and  logic.  It  is  not  only  that  such 
writers  spare  a  word  by  making  a  single  verb  or  adjective  do 
duty  for  several  different  periods,  so  that  the  reader,  as  it 
were,  has  to  grope  his  way  through  them  in  the  dark;  they 
also  practise,  in  many  other  respects,  an  unseemly  economy  of 
speech,  in  the  effort  to  effect  what  they  foolishly  take  to  be 
brevity  of  expression  and  conciseness  of  style.     By  omitting 


264  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

something  thai  might  have  thrown  a  hght  over  the  whole  sen- 
tence, they  turn  it  into  a  conundrum,  which  the  reader  tries 
to  solve  by  going  over  it  again  and  again.* 

It  is  wealth  and  weight  of  thought,  and  nothing  else,  that 
gives  brevity  to  style,  and  makes  it  concise  and  pregnant. 
If  a  writer's  ideas  are  important,  luminous,  and  generally 
worth  communicating,  they  will  necessarily  furnish  matter 
and  substance  enough  to  fill  out  the  periods  which  give  them 
expression,  and  make  these  in  all  their  parts  both  gram- 
matically and  verbally  complete;  and  so  much  will  this  be  the 
case  that  no  one  will  ever  find  them  hollow,  empty,  or  feeble. 
The  diction  will  everywhere  be  brief  and  pregnant,  and  allow 
the  thought  to  find  intelligible  and  easy  expression,  and  even 
unfold  and  move  about  with  grace. 

Therefore,  instead  of  contracting  his  words  and  forms  of 
speech,  let  a  writer  enlarge  his  thoughts.  If  a  man  has  been 
thinned  by  illness  and  finds  his  clothes  too  big,  it  is  not  by 
cutting  them  down,  but  by  recovering  his  usual  bodily  con- 
dition, that  he  ought  to  make  them  fit  him  again. 

Let  me  here  mention  an  error  of  style  very  prevalent  now- 
adays, and,  in  the  degraded  state  of  literature  and  the  neglect 
of  ancient  languages,  always  on  the  increase;  I  mean  sub- 
jectivity. A  writer  commits  this  error  when  he  thinks  it 
enough  if  he  himself  knows  what  he  means  and  wants  to  say, 
and  takes  no  thought  for  the  reader,  who  is  left  to  get  at  the 
bottom  of  it  as  best  he  can.    This  is  as  though  the  author  were 

*  Translator' s  Note.  In  the  original,  Schopenhauer  here  enters  upon  a 
lengthy  examination  of  certain  common  errors  in  the  writing  and  speaking  of 
German.  His  remarks  are  addressed  to  his  own  countrymen,  and  would  lose 
all  point,  even  if  they  were  intelligible,  in  an  English  translation.  But  for 
those  who  practise  their  German  by  conversing  or  corresponding  with  Ger- 
mans, let  me  recommend  what  he  there  says  as  a  useful  corrective  to  a  slip- 
shod style,  such  as  can  easily  be  contracted  if  it  is  assumed  that  the  natives 
of  a  country  always  know  their  own  language  perfectly. 


SC  HOPE  mi  A  UER  265 

holding  a  monologue;  whereas  it  ought  to  be  a  dialogue;  and 
a  dialogue,  too,  in  which  he  must  express  himself  all  the  more 
clearly  inasmuch  as  he  cannot  hear  the  questions  of  his 
interlocutor. 

Style  should  for  this  very  reason  never  be  subjective 
but  objective;  and  it  will  not  be  objective  unless  the  words  are 
so  set  down  that  they  directly  force  the  reader  to  think  pre- 
cisely the  same  thing  as  the  author  thought  when  he  wrote 
them.  Nor  will  this  result  be  obtained  unless  the  author 
has  always  been  careful  to  remember  that  thought  so  far 
follows  the  law  of  gravity  that  it  travels  from  head  to  paper 
much  more  easily  than  from  paper  to  head;  so  that  he  must 
assist  the  latter  passage  by  every  means  in  his  power.  If 
he  does  this,  a  writer's  words  will  have  a  purely  objective 
effect,  hke  that  of  a  finished  picture  in  oils;  whilst  the  sub- 
jective style  is  not  much  more  certain  in  its  working  than  spots 
on  the  wall,  which  look  like  figures  only  to  one  whose  phantasy 
has  been  accidentally  aroused  by  them;  other  people  see 
nothing  but  spots  and  blurs.  The  difference  in  question  ap- 
plies to  literary  method  as  a  whole;  but  it  is  often  established 
also  in  particular  instances.  For  example,  in  a  recently  pub- 
lished work  I  found  the  following  sentence :  /  have  not  written 
in  order  to  increase  the  number  of  existing  books.  This  means 
just  the  opposite  of  what  the  writer  wanted  to  say,  and  is 
nonsense  as  well. 

He  who  writes  carelessly  confesses  thereby  at  the  very  out- 
set that  he  does  not  attach  much  importance  to  his  own 
thoughts.  For  it  is  only  where  a  man  is  convinced  of  the 
truth  and  importance  of  his  thoughts,  that  he  feels  the  en- 
thusiasm necessary  for  an  untiring  and  assiduous  effort  to  find 
the  clearest,  finest,  and  strongest  expression  for  them,  — 
just  as  for  sacred  relics  or  priceless  works  of  art  there  are 
provided  silvern  or  golden  receptacles.     It  was  this  feeling 


266  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

that  led  ancient  authors,  whose  thoughts,  expressed  in  their 
own  words,  have  hved  thousands  of  years,  and  therefore  bear 
the  honored  title  of  classics,  always  to  write  with  care.  Plato, 
indeed,  is  said  to  have  written  the  introduction  to  his  Re- 
public seven  times  over  in  different  ways.* 

As  neglect  of  dress  betrays  want  of  respect  for  the  company 
a  man  meets,  so  a  hasty,  careless,  bad  style  shows  an  outra- 
geous lack  of  regard  for  the  reader,  who  then  rightly  punishes 
it  by  refusing  to  read  the  book.  It  is  especially  amusing  to  see 
reviewers  criticising  the  works  of  others  in  their  own  most 
careless  style  —  the  style  of  a  hireling.  It  is  as  though  a 
judge  were  to  come  into  court  in  dressing-gown  and  slippers  1 
If  I  see  a  man  badly  and  dirtily  dressed,  I  feel  some  hesitation, 
at  first,  in  entering  into  conversation  with  him :  and  when, 
on  taking  up  a  book,  I  am  struck  at  once  by  the  negligence  of 
its  style,  I  put  it  away. 

Good  writing  should  be  governed  by  the  rule  that  a  man 
can  think  only  one  thing  clearly  at  a  time;  and,  therefore, 
that  he  should  not  be  expected  to  think  two  or  even  more 
things  in  one  and  the  same  moment.  But  this  is  what  is  done 
when  a  writer  breaks  up  his  principal  sentence  into  httle 
pieces,  for  the  purpose  of  pushing  into  the  gaps  thus  made  two 
or  three  other  thoughts  by  way  of  parenthesis;  thereby  un- 
necessarily and  wantonly  confusing  the  reader.  And  here  it 
is  again  my  own  countrymen  who  are  chiefly  in  fault.  That 
German  lends  itself  to  this  way  of  writing,  makes  the  thing 
possible,  but  does  not  justify  it.  No  prose  reads  more  easily 
or  pleasantly  than  French,  because,  as  a  rule,  it  is  free  from 
the  error  in  question.  The  Frenchman  strings  his  thoughts 
together,  as  far  as  he  can,  in  the  most  logical  and  natural 

*  Translator^ s  Note.  It  is  a  fad  worth  mentioning  that  the  first  twelve 
words  of  the  Republic  are  placed  in  the  exact  order  which  would  be  natural 
in  English. 


SCHOPENHAUER  267 

order,  and  so  lays  them  before  his  reader  one  after  the  other 
for  convenient  deUberation,  so  that  every  one  of  them  may 
receive  undivided  attention.  The  German,  on  the  other  hand, 
weaves  them  together  into  a  sentence  which  he  twists  and 
crosses,  and  crosses  and  twists  again;  because  he  wants  to 
say  six  things  all  at  once,  instead  of  advancing  them  one  by 
one.  His  aim  should  be  to  attract  and  hold  the  reader's  at- 
tention; but,  above  and  beyond  neglect  of  this  aim,  he  de- 
mands from  the  reader  that  he  shall  set  the  above-mentioned 
rule  at  defiance,  and  think  three  or  four  different  thoughts  at 
one  and  the  same  time;  or  since  that  is  impossible,  that  his 
thoughts  shall  succeed  each  other  as  quickly  as  the  vibrations 
of  a  cord.  In  this  way  an  author  lays  the  foundation  of  his 
stile  empese,  which  is  then  carried  to  perfection  by  the  use  of 
high-flown,  pompous  expressions  to  communicate  the  simplest 
things,  and  other  artifices  of  the  same  kind. 

In  those  long  sentences  rich  in  involved  parentheses,  like  a  box 
of  boxes  one  within  another,  and  padded  out  like  roast  geese 
stuffed  with  apples,  it  is  really  the  memory  that  is  chiefly  taxed; 
while  it  is  the  understanding  and  the  judgment  which  should 
be  called  into  play,  instead  of  having  their  activity  thereby 
actually  hindered  and  weakened.*  This  kind  of  sentence 
furnishes  the  reader  with  mere  half-phrases,  which  he  is 
then  called  upon  to  collect  carefully  and  store  up  in  his  mem- 
ory, as  though  they  were  the  pieces  of  a  torn  letter,  afterwards 
to  be  completed  and  made  sense  of  by  the  other  halves  to 
which  they  respectively  belong.  He  is  expected  to  go  on 
reading  for  a  little  without  exercising  any  thought,  nay,  ex- 
erting only  his  memory,  in  the  hope  that,  when  he  comes  to  the 

*  Translator's  Mote.  This  sentence  in  the  original  is  obviously  meant  to 
illustrate  the  fault  of  which  it  speaks.  It  does  so  by  the  use  of  a  construction 
very  common  in  German,  but  happily  unknown  in  English;  where,  however, 
the  fault  itself  exists  none  the  less,  though  in  a  different  form. 


268  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

end  of  the  sentence,  he  may  see  its  meaning  and  so  receive 
something  to  think  about ;  and  he  is  thus  given  a  great  deal  to 
learn  by  heart  before  obtaining  anything  to  understand. 
This  is  manifestly  wrong  and  an  abuse  of  the  reader's  patience. 
The  ordinary  writer  has  an  unmistakable  preference  for 
this  style,  because  it  causes  the  reader  to  spend  time  and 
trouble  in  understanding  that  which  he  would  have  under- 
stood in  a  moment  without  it;  and  this  makes  it  look  as  though 
the  writer  had  more  depth  and  intelligence  than  the  reader. 
This  is,  indeed,  one  of  those  artifices  referred  to  above,  by 
means  of  which  mediocre  authors  unconsciously,  and  as  it 
were  by  instinct,  strive  to  conceal  their  poverty  of  thought 
and  give  an  appearance  of  the  opposite.  Their  ingenuity  in 
this  respect  is  really  astounding. 

It  is  manifestly  against  all  sound  reason  to  put  one  thought 
obliquely  on  top  of  another,  as  though  both  together  formed 
a  wooden  cross.  But  this  is  what  is  done  where  a  writer 
interrupts  what  he  has  begun  to  say,  for  the  purpose  of  in- 
serting some  quite  ahen  matter;  thus  depositing  with  the 
reader  a  meaningless  half- sentence,  and  bidding  him  keep 
it  until  the  completion  comes.  It  is  much  as  though  a  man 
were  to  treat  his  guests  by  handing  them  an  empty  plate,  in 
the  hope  of  something  appearing  upon  it.  And  commas 
used  for  a  similar  purpose  belong  to  the  same  family  as  notes 
at  the  foot  of  the  page  and  parentheses  in  the  middle  of  the 
text;  nay,  all  three  differ  only  in  degree.  If  Demosthenes 
and  Cicero  occasionally  inserted  words  by  way  of  parenthesis, 
they  would  have  done  better  to  have  refrained. 

But  this  style  of  writing  becomes  the  height  of  absurdity 
when  the  parentheses  are  not  even  fitted  into  the  frame  of  the 
sentence,  but  wedged  in  so  as  directly  to  shatter  it.  If, 
for  instance,  it  is  an  impertinent  thing  to  interrupt  another 
person  when  he  is  speaking,  it  is  no  less  impertinent  to  inter- 


SCHOPENHA  UER  269 

rupt  oneself.  But  all  bad,  careless,  and  hasty  authors,  who 
scribble  with  the  bread  actually  before  their  eyes,  use  this 
style  of  writing  six  times  on  a  page,  and  rejoice  in  it.  It  con- 
sists in  —  it  is  advisable  to  give  rule  and  example  together, 
wherever  it  is  possible  —  breaking  up  one  phrase  in  order  to 
glue  in  another.  Nor  is  it  merely  out  of  laziness  that  they 
write  thus.  They  do  it  out  of  stupidity;  they  think  there  is  a 
charming  legerete  about  it ;  that  it  gives  life  to  what  they  say. 
No  doubt  there  are  a  few  rare  cases  where  such  a  form  of 
sentence  may  be  pardonable. 

Few  write  in  the  way  in  which  an  architect  builds;  who, 
before  he  sets  to  work,  sketches  out  his  plan,  and  thinks  it 
over  down  to  its  smallest  details.  Nay,  most  people  write 
only  as  though  they  were  playing  dominoes;  and  as  in  this 
game  the  pieces  are  arranged  half  by  design,  half  by  chance, 
so  it  is  with  the  sequence  and  connection  of  their  sentences. 
They  only  just  have  an  idea  of  what  the  general  shape  of  their 
work  will  be,  and  of  the  aim  they  set  before  themselves. 
Many  are  ignorant  even  of  this,  and  write  as  the  coral-insects 
build;  period  joins  to  period,  and  Lord  knows  what  the 
author  means. 

Life  nowadays  goes  at  a  gallop;  and  the  way  in  which 
this  affects  literature  is  to  make  it  extremely  superficial  and 
slovenly. 

*  Observe  the  strikingly  similar  diction  used  by  Wackemagel,  above,  p.  10. 

*  Compare  Wackernagel,  above,  pp.  15-16. 
^  Horace,  Art  of  Poetry,  1.  309. 

*  Compare  Buffon,  above,  p.  176. 

*  Owing,  very  likely,  to  a  printer's  error,  Mr.  Saunders  translates  Schopen- 
hauer's adjective  aerohatisch  "acrobatic."  The  German  word  is  an  inheri- 
tance^from  the  Greek;  cf.  Aristophanes,  Clouds,  225.  The  vavh  aerobate 
occurs  in  one  or  two  English  translations  of  the  Clouds;  the  New  English 
Dictionary  does  not  record  acrobatic. 

'  Compare  Swift,  above,  p.  162. 


270  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

XIII 

HERBERT    SPENCER    (1820-1903) 

The  Philosophy  of  Style  (1852) 

[Spencer's  essay  on  The  Philosophy  oj  Style  appeared 
originally  in  the  Westminster  Review  for  October,  1852,  as  a 
review  article  upon  Whately's  Elements  0}  Rhetoric,  edited  by 
J.  W.  Parker,  Blair's  Lectures  on  Rhetoric  and  Belles  Lettres, 
Campbell's  Philosophy  oj  Rhetoric,  Sund  "Lord  Kaimes' £/e- 
nients  of  Rhetor ic.^^  It  was  copied  thence  in  the  Eclectic 
Magazine  for  January,  1853  (Vol.  28,  pp.  45-58).  It  has 
been  republished  separately  as  an  annotated  brochure  (New 
York,  Appleton,  1881,  etc.),  included  in  two  collections  of 
Spencer's  essays  (Essays:  Scientific,  Political,  and  Speculative; 
and  Essays:  Moral,  Political,  and  Esthetic),  and  "  inserted 
in  Boyd's  edition  of  Lord  Kames'  Elements  oj  Criticism.^' 
It  is  contained  also  in  Professor  W.  T.  Brewster's  collection, 
Representative  Essays  on  the  Theory  oj  Style  (1905).  Finally, 
it  has  been  edited  by  Professor  F.  N.  Scott  (Boston,  Allyn  & 
Bacon,  second  edition,  1905),  "  in  the  behef  that  The 
Philosophy  oj  Style  can  be  understood  only  in  its  proper 
connection  with  the  Spencerian  philosophy  as  a  whole."  In 
the  latter  edition  Spencer's  essay  is  accompanied  by  T.  H. 
Wright's  article  on  Style,  which  was  a  criticism  of  Spencer 
contributed  to  Macmillan^s  Magazine  (Vol.  37,  pp.  78  ff.), 
and  copied  by  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  for  January,  1878 
(Vol.  12,  pp.  340-349).  To  Professor  Scott's  useful  bibliog- 
raphy should  be  added  the  titles  of  two  subsequent  pubhca- 
tions:  Spencer's  Autobiography, 'New  York  (Appleton),  1904; 
and  an  estimate  of  Spencer  by  Professor  Royce  in  the  Inter- 
national Quarterly  for  June-September,  1904.  Hiram  M. 
Stanley's  Studies  in  the  Evolutionary  Psychology  oj  Feeling, 
London,  1895,  criticises  Spencer  suggestively  (Chap.  XVIII, 
The  Psychology  oj  Literary  Style). 

Without  adequate  space,  such  as  Professor  Scott  devotes 
to  the  matter,  it  is  impossible  to  do  more  than  hint  at  the 
necessary  relation  between  Spencer's  essay,  with  its  salient 


SPENCER  271 

doctrine  of  economy  in  literary  expression,  and  the  rest  of 
the  Spencerian  social  philosophy.  This  principle  of  economy 
is  to  be  interpreted  in  the  light  of  Spencer's  fundamental  con- 
ception of  society  as  a  unified  and  developing  organism.  The 
organism,  being  made  up  of  individuals  whose  united  activi- 
ties constitute  its  manifold  functions,  demands  at  every  instant 
the  wisest  expenditure  of  energy  on  the  part  of  each  individual, 
in  the  interests  of  the  general  welfare  and  progress —  that  is, 
of  the  more  perfect  functioning  of  the  whole.  Literature 
being  a  means  of  communication,  therefore  a  social  function,  it 
follows  that  each  separable  portion  of  expressed  thought,  great 
or  small — a  dissertation,  a  paragraph,  a  phrase — is  valuable 
according  as  it  contributes  with  minimum  waste  of  energy, 
not  simply  to  the  direct  apprehension  of  what  the  writer 
wishes  to  say  (since  a  given  subject-matter,  say  a  false  philoso- 
phy, might  be  injurious  to  society  as  a  whole),  but  to  the  pro- 
gressive well-being  and  intelligence  of  the  entire  social  complex. 
If  Spencer's  essay  inevitably  loses  when  detached  from  the 
remainder  of  his  work,  it  ought  still  to  gain  something  when 
confronted  with  the  opinions  of  others  who  have  thought  upon 
the  same  subject.  "  No  general  theory  of  expression,"  he  says, 
"  seems  yet  to  have  been  enunciated;  "  a  characteristically 
sweeping  assertion,  in  which,  however,  he  is  striking  chiefly  at 
the  rhetoricians  of  his  own  land.  Of  the  ancients  he  knew 
less;  and  in  the  modern  continental  writers  whom  his  slash- 
ing generalization  would  include,  he  was  likewise  not  well- 
read.  The  worth  of  The  Philosophy  0}  Style  must  be  settled 
to  some  extent  by  a  comparison  with  both.] 

Part  I 

Causes  of  Force  in  Language  which  depend  upon  Economy  of 
the  Mental  Energies 

I.     The  Principle  of  Economy  applied  to  Words 

Commenting  on  the  seeming  incongruity  between  his 
father's  argumentative  powers  and  his  ignorance  of  formal 
logic,  Tristram    Shandy  says:    "  It  was  a    matter  of   just 


2/2  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

wonder  with  my  worthy  tutor,  and  two  or  three  fellows  of 
that  learned  society,  that  a  man  who  knew  not  so  much  as 
the  names  of  his  tools,  should  be  able  to  work  after  that 
fashion  with  them."  Sterne's  intended  imphcation  that  a 
knowledge  of  the  principles  of  reasoning  neither  makes,  nor 
is  essential  to,  a  good  rcasoner,  is  doubtless  true.  Thus,  too, 
is  it  with  grammar.  As  Dr.  Latham,  condemning  the  usual 
school-drill  in  Lindley  Murray,  rightly  remarks:  ''Gross 
vulgarity  is  a  fault  to  be  prevented;  but  the  proper  preven- 
tion is  to  be  got  from  habit  —  not  rules."  Similarly,  there 
can  be  little  question  that  good  composition  is  far  less  de- 
pendent upon  acquaintance  with  its  laws,  than  upon  practice 
and  natural  aptitude.  A  clear  head,  a  quick  imagination, 
and  a  sensitive  ear,  will  go  far  towards  making  all  rhetorical 
precepts  needless.  He  who  daily  hears  and  reads  well- 
framed  sentences,  will  naturally  more  or  less  tend  to  use 
similar  ones.  And  where  there  exists  any  mental  idiosyncrasy 
—  where  there  is  a  deficient  verbal  memory,  or  an  inadequate 
sense  of  logical  dependence,  or  but  little  perception  of  order, 
or  a  lack  of  constructive  ingenuity  —  no  amount  of  instruction 
will  remedy  the  defect.  Nevertheless,  some  practical  result 
may  be  expected  from  a  familiarity  with  the  principles  of 
style.  The  endeavor  to  conform  to  laws  may  tell,  though 
slowly.  And  if  in  no  other  way,  yet,  as  facilitating  revision, 
a  knowledge  of  the  thing  to  be  achieved  —  a  clear  idea  of 
what  constitutes  a  beauty,  and  what  a  blemish  —  cannot  fail 
to  be  of  service. 

No  general  theory  of  expression  seems  yet  to  have  been 
enunciated.  The  maxims  contained  in  works  on  composition 
and  rhetoric,  arc  presented  in  an  unorganized  form.  Stand- 
ing as  isolated  dogmas  —  as  empirical  generalizations,  they 
are  neither  so  clearly  apprehended,  nor  so  much  respected, 


SPENCER  273 

as  they  would  be  were  they  deduced  from  some  simple  first 
principle.  We  are  told  that  "  brevity  is  the  soul  of  wit." 
We  hear  styles  condemned  as  verbose  or  involved.  Blair 
says  that  every  needless  part  of  a  sentence  "  interrupts  the 
description  and  clogs  the  image";  and  again,  that  "long 
sentences  fatigue  the  reader's  attention."  It  is  remarked  by 
Lord  Kaimes/  that  "to  give  the  utmost  force  to  a  period,  it 
ought,  if  possible,  to  be  closed  with  that  word  which  makes 
the  greatest  figure."  That  parentheses  should  be  avoided 
and  that  Saxon  words  should  be  used  in  preference  to  those 
of  Latin  origin,  are  estabhshed  precepts.  But,  however  in- 
fluential the  truths  thus  dogmatically  embodied,  they  would 
be  much  more  influential  if  reduced  to  something  like  scientific 
ordination.  In  this,  as  in  other  cases,  conviction  will  be 
greatly  strengthened  when  we  understand  the  why.  And  we 
may  be  sure  that  a  comprehension  of  the  general  principle 
from  which  the  rules  of  composition  result,  will  not  only 
bring  them  home  to  us  with  greater  force,  but  will  discover 
to  us  other  rules  of  like  origin. 

On  seeking  for  some  clue  to  the  law  underlying  these  cur- 
rent maxims,  we  may  see  shadowed  forth  in  many  of  them, 
the  importance  of  economizing  the  reader's  or  hearer's  atten- 
tion. To  so  present  ideas  that  they  may  be  apprehended  with 
the  least  possible  mental  effort,  is  the  desideratum  towards 
which  most  of  the  rules  above  quoted  point.  When  we  con- 
demn writing  that  is  wordy,  or  confused,  or  intricate  —  when 
we  praise  this  style  as  easy,  and  blame  that  as  fatiguing,  we 
consciously  or  unconsciously  assume  this  desideratum  as  our 
standard  of  judgment.  Regarding  language  as  an  apparatus 
of  symbols  for  the  conveyance  of  thought,  we  may  say  that, 
as  in  a  mechanical  apparatus,  the  more  simple  and  the  better 
arranged  its  parts,  the  greater  will  be  the  effect  produced.  In 
either  case,  whatever  force  is  absorbed  by  the  machine  is 

T 


274  THEORIES    OE  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

deducted  from  the  result.  A.  reader  or  listener  has  at  each 
moment  but  a  limited  amount  of  mental  power  available.  To 
recognize  and  interpret  the  symbols  presented  to  him,  re- 
quires part  of  this  power;  to  arrange  and  combine  the  images 
suggested  requires  a  further  part;  and  only  that  part  which 
remains  can  be  used  for  realizing  the  thought  conveyed. 
Hence,  the  more  time  and  attention  it  takes  to  receive  and 
understand  each  sentence,  the  less  time  and  attention  can  be 
given  to  the  contained  idea;  and  the  less  vividly  will  that  idea 
be  conceived. 

How  truly  language  must  be  regarded  as  a  hindrance  to 
thought,  though  the  necessary  instrument  of  it,  we  shall 
clearly  perceive  on  remembering  the  comparative  force  with 
which  simple  ideas  are  communicated  by  signs.  To  say, 
"  Leave  the  room,"  is  less  expressive  than  to  point  to  the 
door.  Placing  a  finger  on  the  lips  is  more  forcible  than 
whispering,  "  Do  not  speak."  A  beck  of  the  hand  is  better 
than,  "  Come  here."  No  phrase  can  convey  the  idea  of  sur- 
prise so  vividly  as  opening  the  eyes  and  raising  the  eyebrows. 
A  shrug  of  the  shoulders  would  lose  much  by  translation  into 
words.  Again,  it  may  be  remarked  that  when  oral  language 
is  employed,  the  strongest  effects  are  produced  by  interjec- 
tions, which  condense  entire  sentences  into  syllables.  And 
in  other  cases,  where  custom  allows  us  to  express  thoughts 
by  single  words,  as  in  Beware,  HelgJio,  Fudge,  much  force 
would  be  lost  by  expanding  them  into  specific  propositions. 
Hence,  carrying  out  the  metaphor  that  language  is  the  vehicle 
of  thought,  there  seems  reason  to  think  that  in  all  cases  the 
friction  and  inertia  of  the  vehicle  deduct  from  its  cfhcicncy; 
and  that  in  composition,  the  chief,  if  not  the  sole  thing  to  be 
done,  is,  to  reduce  this  friction  and  inertia  to  the  smallest 
possible  amount.  Let  us  then  inquire  whether  economy  of 
the  recipient's  attention  is  not  the  secret  of  effect,  alike  in  the 


SPENCER  275 

right  choice  and  collocation  of  words,  in  the  best  arrange- 
ment of  clauses  in  a  sentence,  in  the  proper  order  of  its 
principal  and  subordinate  propositions,  in  the  judicious  use 
of  simile,  metaphor,  and  other  figures  of  speech,  and  even  in 
the  rhythmical  sequence  of  syllables. 

The  greater  forcibleness  of  Saxon  English,  or  rather  non- 
Latin  English,  first  claims  our  attention.^  The  several  special 
reasons  assignable  for  this  may  all  be  reduced  to  the  general 
reason  —  economy.  The  most  important  of  them  is  early 
association.  A  child's  vocabulary  is  almost  wholly  Saxon. 
He  says,  /  have^  not  /  possess — /  wish,  not  /  desire  ;  he  does 
not  reflect,  he  thinks  ;  he  does  not  beg  for  amusement,  but  for 
play ;  he  calls  things  nice  or  nasty,  not  pleasant  or  disagree- 
able. The  synonyms  which  he  learns  in  after  years,  never 
become  so  closely,  so  organically  connected  with  the  ideas 
signified,  as  do  these  original  words  used  in  childhood;  and 
hence  the  association  remains  less  strong.  But  in  what  does 
a  strong  association  between  a  word  and  an  idea  differ  from 
a  weak  one?  Simply  in  the  greater  ease  and  rapidity  of  the 
suggestive  action.  It  can  be  in  nothing  else.  Both  of  two 
words,  if  they  be  strictly  synonymous,  eventually  call  up  the 
same  image.  The  expression  —  It  is  acid,  must  in  the  end 
give  rise  to  the  same  thought  as  —  It  is  sour;  but  because 
the  term  acid  was  learnt  later  in  life,  and  has  not  been  so 
often  followed  by  the  thought  symbolized,  it  does  not  so  readily 
arouse  that  thought  as  the  term  sour.  If  we  remember  how 
slowly  and  with  what  labor  the  appropriate  ideas  follow  un- 
familiar words  in  another  language,  and  how  increasing 
familiarity  with  such  words  brings  greater  rapidity  and  case 
of  comprehension;  and  if  we  consider  that  the  same  process 
must  have  gone  on  with  the  words  of  our  mother  tongue  from 
childhood  upwards,  we  shall  clearly  see  that  the  earliest  learnt 
and  oftenest  used  words,  will,  other  things  equal,  call  up 


276  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

images  with  less  loss  of  time  and  energy  than  their  latei 
learnt  synonyms. 

The  further  superiority  possessed  by  Saxon  English  in  its 
comparative  brevity,  obviously  comes  under  the  same  generali- 
zation. If  it  be  an  advantage  to  express  an  idea  in  the 
smallest  number  of  words,  then  will  it  be  an  advantage  to 
express  it  in  the  smallest  number  of  syllables.  If  circuitous 
phrases  and  needless  expletives  distract  the  attention  and 
diminish  the  strength  of  the  impression  produced,  then  do 
surplus  articulations  do  so.  A  certain  effort,  though  com- 
monly an  inappreciable  one,  must  be  required  to  recognize 
every  vowel  and  consonant.  If,  as  all  know,  it  is  tiresome  to 
listen  to  an  indistinct  speaker,  or  read  a  badly  written  manu- 
script; and  if,  as  we  cannot  doubt,  the  fatigue  is  a  cumula- 
tive result  of  the  attention  needed  to  catch  successive  syllables; 
it  follows  that  attention  is  in  such  cases  absorbed  by  each 
syllable.  And  if  this  be  true  when  the  syllables  are  diffi- 
cult of  recognition,  it  will  also  be  true,  though  in  a  less  degree, 
when  the  recognition  of  them  is  easy.  Hence,  the  shortness 
of  Saxon  words  becomes  a  reason  for  their  greater  force.  One 
qualification,  however,  must  not  be  overlooked.  A  word 
which  in  itself  embodies  the  most  important  part  of  the  idea 
to  be  conveyed,  especially  when  that  idea  is  an  emotional  one, 
may  often  with  advantage  be  a  polysyllabic  word.  Thus  it 
seems  more  forcible  to  say,  "It  is  magni'ficent,''^  than  "It  is 
grand."  The  word  vast  is  not  so  powerful  a  one  as  stupendous. 
Calling  a  thing  nasty  is  not  so  effective  as  calling  it  disgusting. 

There  seem  to  be  several  causes  for  this  exceptional  su- 
periority of  certain  long  words.  We  may  ascribe  it  partly  to 
the  fact  that  a  voluminous,  mouth-filling  epithet  is,  by  its 
very  size,  suggestive  of  largeness  or  strength;  witness  the 
immense  pomposity  of  sesquipedalian  verbiage:  and  when 
great  power  or  intensity  has  to  be  suggested,  this  association 


SPENCER  277 

of  ideas  aids  the  effect.  A  further  cause  may  be  that  a  word 
of  several  syllables  admits  of  more  emphatic  articulation;  and 
as  emphatic  articulation  is  a  sign  of  emotion,  the  unusual 
impressiveness  of  the  thing  named  is  implied  by  it.  Yet  an- 
other cause  is  that  a  long  word  (of  which  the  latter  syllables 
are  generally  inferred  as  soon  as  the  first  are  spoken)  allows 
the  hearer's  consciousness  a  longer  time  to  dwell  upon  the 
quality  predicated;  and  where,  as  in  the  above  cases,  it  is 
to  this  predicated  quality  that  the  entire  attention  is  called, 
an  advantage  results  from  keeping  it  before  the  mind  for  an 
appreciable  time.  The  reasons  which  we  have  given  for 
preferring  short  words  evidently  do  not  hold  here.  So  that 
to  make  our  generalization  quite  correct  we  must  say,  that 
while  in  certain  sentences  expressing  strong  feehng,  the  word 
which  more  especially  implies  that  feeling  may  often  with 
advantage  be  a  many-syllabled  or  Latin  one ;  in  the  immense 
majority  of  cases,  each  word  serving  but  as  a  step  to  the 
idea  embodied  by  the  whole  sentence,  should,  if  possible,  be 
a  one-syllabled  or  Saxon  one. 

Once  more,  that  frequent  cause  of  strength  in  Saxon  and 
other  primitive  words  — -  their  imitative  character,  may  be 
similarly  resolved  into  the  more  general  cause.  Both  those 
directly  imitative,  as  splash,  hang,  whiz,  roar,  &c.,  and  those 
analogically  imitative,  as  rough,  smooth,  keen,  blunt,  thin,  hard, 
crag,  &c.,  have  a  greater  or  less  likeness  to  the  things  sym- 
bolized; and  by  making  on  the  senses  impressions  allied  to 
the  ideas  to  be  called  up,  they  save  part  of  the  effort  needed 
to  call  up  such  ideas,  and  leave  more  attention  for  the  ideas 
themselves. 

The  economy  of  the  recipient's  mental  energy,  into  which 
are  thus  resolvable  the  several  causes  of  the  strength  of  Saxon 
EngHsh,  may  equally  be  traced  in  the  superiority  of  specific 
over  generic  words.    That  concrete  terms  produce  more  vivid 


2/8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

impressions  than  abstract  ones,  and  should,  when  possible, 
be  used  instead,  is  a  current  maxim  of  composition.  As 
Dr.  Campbell  says,  "The  more  general  the  terms  are,  the 
picture  is  the  fainter;  the  more  special  they  are,  'tis  the 
brighter."  '    We  should  avoid  such  a  sentence  as: 

In  proportion  as  the  manners,  customs,  and  amusements  of 
a  nation  are  cruel  and  barbarous,  the  regulations  of  their 
penal  code  will  be  severe. 

And  in  place  of  it  we  should  write: 

In  proportion  as  men  delight  in  battles,  bull-fights,  and 
combats  of  gladiators,  will  they  punish  by  hanging,  burn- 
ing, and  the  rack. 

This  superiority  of  specific  expressions  is  clearly  due  to  a 
saving  of  the  effort  required  to  translate  words  into  thoughts. 
As  we  do  not  think  in  generals  but  in  particulars  —  as,  when- 
ever any  class  of  things  is  referred  to,  we  represent  it  to  our- 
selves by  calling  to  mind  individual  members  of  it ;  it  follows 
that  when  an  abstract  word  is  used,  the  hearer  or  reader  has 
to  choose  from  his  stock  of  images,  one  or  more,  by  which 
he  may  figure  to  himself  the  genus  mentioned.  In  doing 
this,  some  delay  must  arise  —  some  force  be  expended ;  and 
if,  by  employing  a  specific  term,  an  appropriate  image  can  be 
at  once  suggested,  an  economy  is  achieved,  and  a  more  vivid 
impression  produced. 

Turning  now  from  the  choice  of  words  to  their  sequence, 
we  shall  fmd  the  same  general  principle  hold  good.  We  have 
a  priori  reasons  for  believing  that  in  every  sentence  there  is 
some  one  order  of  words  more  effective  than  any  other;  and 
that  this  order  is  the  one  which  presents  the  elements  of  the 
proposition  in  the  succession  in  which  they  may  be  most 
readily  put  together.  As  in  a  narrative,  the  events  should  be 
stated  in  such  sequence  that  the  mind  may  not  have  to  go 


SPENCER  279 

backwards  and  forwards  in  order  to  rightly  connect  them ;  as 
in  a  group  of  sentences,  the  arrangement  should  be  such, 
that  each  of  them  may  be  understood  as  it  comes,  without  wait- 
ing for  subsequent  ones;  so  in  every  sentence,  the  sequence 
of  words  should  be  that  which  suggests  the  constituents  of  the 
thought  in  the  order  most  convenient  for  the  building  up  that 
thought.  Duly  to  enforce  this  truth,  and  to  prepare  the  way 
for  applications  of  it,  we  must  briefly  inquire  into  the  mental 
act  by  which  the  meaning  of  a  series  of  words  is  apprehended. 
We  cannot  more  simply  do  this  than  by  considering  the 
proper  collocation  of  the  substantive  and  adjective.  Is  it 
better  to  place  the  adjective  before  the  substantive,  or  the 
substantive  before  the  adjective?  Ought  we  to  say  with  the 
French  —  un  cheval  noir;  or  to  say  as  we  do  —  a  black  horse? 
Probably,  most  persons  of  culture  would  decide  that  one  order 
is  as  good  as  the  other.  Alive  to  the  bias  produced  by  habit, 
they  would  ascribe  to  that  the  preference  they  feel  for  our 
own  form  of  expression.  They  would  expect  those  educated 
in  the  use  of  the  opposite  form  to  have  an  equal  preference 
for  that.  And  thus  they  would  conclude  that  neither  of  these 
instinctive  judgments  is  of  any  worth.  There  is,  however,  a 
philosophical  ground  for  deciding  in  favor  of  the  English 
custom.  If  "a  horse  black "  be  the  arrangement,  im- 
mediately on  the  utterance  of  the  word  "  horse,"  there  arises, 
or  tends  to  arise,  in  the  mind,  a  picture  answering  to  that 
word;  and  as  there  has  been  nothing  to  indicate  what  kind 
of  horse,  any  image  of  a  horse  suggests  itself.  Very  likely, 
however,  the  image  will  be  that  of  a  brown  horse,  brown 
horses  being  the  most  familiar.  The  result  is  that  when  the 
word  "  black  "is  added,  a  check  is  given  to  the  process  of 
thought.  Either  the  picture  of  a  brown  horse  already  present 
to  the  imagination  has  to  be  suppressed,  and  the  picture  of  a 
black  one  summoned  in  its  place;  or  else,  if  the  picture  of  a 


280  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

brown  horse  be  yet  unformed,  the  tendency  to  form  it  has  to 
be  stopped.  Whichever  is  the  case,  a  certain  amount  of 
hindrance  resuks.  But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  "  a  black  horse  " 
be  the  expression  used,  no  such  mistake  can  be  made.  The 
word  "  black,"  indicating  an  abstract  quality,  arouses  no 
definite  idea.  It  simply  prepares  the  mind  for  conceiving 
some  object  of  that  color;  and  the  attention  is  kept  suspended 
until  that  object  is  known.  If,  then,  by  the  precedence  of 
the  adjective,  the  idea  is  conveyed  without  liabihty  to  error, 
whereas  the  precedence  of  the  substantive  is  apt  to  produce 
a  misconception,  it  follows  that  the  one  gives  the  mind  less 
trouble  than  the  other,  and  is  therefore  more  forcible. 

Possibly  it  will  be  objected  that  the  adjective  and  sub- 
stantive come  so  close  together,  that  practically  they  may  be 
considered  as  uttered  at  the  same  moment ;  and  that  on  hear- 
ing the  phrase  "  a  horse  black,"  there  is  not  time  to  imagine 
a  wrongly- colored  horse  before  the  word  "black"  follows 
to  prevent  it.  It  must  be  owned  that  it  is  not  easy  to  decide 
by  introspection  whether  this  is  so  or  not.  But  there  are  facts 
collaterally  implying  that  it  is  not.  Our  ability  to  anticipate 
the  words  yet  unspoken  is  one  of  them.  If  the  ideas  of 
the  hearer  kept  considerably  behind  the  expressions  of  the 
speaker,  as  the  objection  assumes,  he  could  hardly  foresee  the 
end  of  a  sentence  by  the  time  it  was  half  delivered:  yet  this 
constantly  happens.  Were  the  supposition  true,  the  mind, 
instead  of  anticipating,  would  be  continually  falling  more  and 
more  in  arrear.  If  the  meanings  of  words  are  not  realized 
as  fast  as  the  words  are  uttered,  then  the  loss  of  time  over 
each  word  must  entail  such  an  accumulation  of  delays  as  to 
leave  a  hearer  entirely  behind.  But  whether  the  force  of 
these  replies  be  or  be  not  admitted,  it  will  scarcely  be  denied 
that  the  right  formation  of  a  picture  will  be  facilitated  by 
presenting  its  elements  in  the  order  in  which  they  are  wanted; 


SPENCER  28 1 

even  though  the  mind  should  do  nothing  until  it  has  received 
them  all. 

What  is  here  said  respecting  the  succession  of  the  adjective 
and  substantive  is  obviously  applicable,  by  change  of  terms, 
to  the  adverb  and  verb.  And  without  further  explanation,  it 
will  be  manifest,  that  in  the  use  of  prepositions  and  other 
particles,  most  languages  spontaneously  conform  with  more 
or  less  completeness  to  this  law. 

On  applying  a  hke  analysis  to  the  larger  divisions  of  a 
sentence,  we  find  not  only  that  the  same  principle  holds  good, 
but  that  the  advantage  of  respecting  it  becomes  marked.  In 
the  arrangement  of  predicate  and  subject,  for  example,  we 
are  at  once  shown  that  as  the  predicate  determines  the  aspect 
under  which  the  subject  is  to  be  conceived,  it  should  be 
placed  first;  and  the  striking  effect  produced  by  so  placing 
it  becomes  comprehensible.  Take  the  often-c|uoted  contrast 
between  "  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,"  and  "  Diana  of 
the  Ephesians  is  great."  When  the  first  arrangement  is  used, 
the  utterance  of  the  word  "  great  "  arouses  those  vague  asso- 
ciations of  an  impressive  nature  with  which  it  has  been 
habitually  connected;  the  imagination  is  prepared  to  clothe 
with  high  attributes  whatever  follows;  and  when  the  words 
"  Diana  of  the  Ephesians  "  are  heard,  all  the  appropriate 
imagery  which  can,  on  the  instant,  be  summoned,  is  used  in 
the  formation  of  the  picture :  the  mind  being  thus  led  directly, 
and  without'  error,  to  the  intended  impression.  When,  on 
the  contrary,  the  reverse  order  is  followed,  the  idea  "  Diana 
of  the  Ephesians  "  is  conceived  with  no  special  reference  to 
greatness;  and  when  the  words  "  is  great  "  are  added,  the 
conception  has  to  be  remodelled:  whence  arises  a  loss  of 
mental  energy,  and  a  corresponding  diminution  of  effect.  The 
following  verse  from  Coleridge's  "  Ancient  Mariner,"  though 
somewhat  irregular  in  structure,  well  illustrates  the  same  truth: 


282  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  JN  LITERATURE 

"  Alone,  alone,  all,  all  alone, 
Alone  on  a  wide  wide  seal 
And  never  a  saint  took  pity  on 
My  soul  in  agony." 

Of  course  the  principle  equally  appMes  when  the  predicate 
is  a  verb  or  a  participle.  And  as  effect  is  gained  by  placing 
first  all  words  indicating  the  quality,  conduct,  or  condition  of 
the  subject,  it  follows  that  the  copula  also  should  have  pre- 
cedence. It  is  true  that  the  general  habit  of  our  language 
resists  this  arrangement  of  predicate,  copula,  and  subject; 
but  we  may  readily  find  instances  of  the  additional  force 
gained  by  conforming  to  it.    Thus,  in  the  line  from  "  Julius 

Caesar  " — 

"  Then  hurst  his  mighty  heart," 

priority  is  given  to  a  word  embodying  both  predicate  and 
copula.  In  a  passage  contained  in  "The  Battle  of  Flodden 
Field,"  the  like  order  is  systematically  employed  with  great 
efifect : 

"  The  Border  slogan  rent  the  sky ! 
A  home!  a  Gordon!  was  the  cry; 
Loud  were  the  clanging  blows : 
Advanced,  —  forced  back,  —  now  low,  now  high. 

The  pennon  sunk  and  rose ; 
As  hends  the  bark's  mast  in  the  gale 
When  rent  are  rigging,  shrouds,  and  sail, 
It  wavered  'mid  the  foes." 

Pursuing  the  principle  yet  further,  it  is  obvious  that  for 
producing  the  greatest  effect,  not  only  should  the  main  divi- 
sions of  a  sentence  observe  this  sequence,  but  the  subdivisions 
of  these  should  be  similarly  arranged.  In  nearly  all  cases, 
the  f)redicate  is  accompanied  by  some  limit  or  qualification 
called  its  complement.  Commonly,  also,  the  circumstances  of 
the  subject,  which  form  its  complement,  have  to  be  specified. 


SPEXCER  283 

And  as  these  qualifications  and  circumstances  must  deter- 
mine the  mode  in  which  the  acts  and  things  they  belong  to 
are  conceived,  precedence  should  be  given  to  them.  Lord 
Kaimes  notices  the  fact  that  this  order  is  preferable;  though 
vi^ithout  giving  the  reason.  He  says:  —  "When  a  circum- 
stance is  placed  at  the  beginning  of  the  period,  or  near  the 
beginning,  the  transition  from  it  to  the  principal  subject  is 
agreeable:  it  is  like  ascending  or  going  upward."  A  sen- 
tence arranged  in  illustration  of  this  will  be  desirable.  Here 
is  one : 

Whatever  it  may  be  in  theory,  it  is  clear  that  in  practice 
the  French  idea  of  liberty  is  —  the  right  of  every  man  to  be 
master  of  the  rest. 

In  this  case,  were  the  first  two  clauses,  up  to  the  word 
"  practice  "  inclusive,  which  qualify  the  subject,  to  be  placed 
at  the  end  instead  of  the  beginning,  much  of  the  force  would 
be  lost;   as  thus: 

The  French  idea  of  liberty  is  —  the  right  of  every  man  to 
be  master  of  the  rest;   in  practice  at  least,  if  not  in  theory. 

Similarly,  with  respect  to  the  conditions  under  which  any 
fact  is  predicated.  Observe  in  the  following  example  the 
effect  of  putting  them  last : 

How  immense  would  be  the  stimulus  to  progress,  were  the 
honor  now  given  to  wealth  and  title  given  exclusively  to 
high  achievements  and  intrinsic  worth  ! 

And  then  observe  the  superior  effect  of  putting  them  first : 

Were  the  honor  now  given  to  wealth  and  title  given  ex- 
clusively to  high  achievements  and  intrinsic  worth,  how  im- 
mense would  be  the  stimulus  to  progress  ! 

The  effect  of  giving  priority  to  the  complement  of  the 
predicate,  as  well  as  the  predicate  itself,  is  finely  displayed  in 
the  opening  of  "  Hyperion  ": 


284  THEORIES    OE  STYLE   TV   LITERATURE 

"  Deep  in  the  shady  sadness  of  a  vale 
Far  sunken  from  the  healthy  breath  of  morn, 
Far  from  the  fiery  noon,  and  ei>e^s  one  star. 
Sat  gray -haired  Saturn,  quiet  as  a  stone." 

Here  it  will  be  observed,  not  only  that  the  predicate  "  sat  " 
precedes  the  subject  "  Saturn,"  and  that  the  three  lines  in 
italics,  constituting  the  complement  of  the  predicate,  come 
before  it;  but  that  in  the  structure  of  that  complement  also, 
the  same  order  is  followed:  each  line  being  so  arranged 
that  the  qualifying  words  are  placed  before  the  words  sug- 
gesting concrete  images. 

The  right  succession  of  the  principal  and  subordinate  propo- 
sitions in  a  sentence  manifestly  depends  on  the  same  law. 
Regard  for  economy  of  the  recipient's  attention,  which,  as 
we  find,  determines  the  best  order  for  the  subject,  copula, 
predicate,  and  their  complements,  dictates  that  the  subordinate 
proposition  shall  precede  the  principal  one,  when  the  sentence 
includes  two.  Containing,  as  the  subordinate  proposition 
does,  some  qualifying  or  explanatory  idea,  its  priority  pre- 
vents misconception  of  the  principal  one;  and  therefore  saves 
the  mental  effort  needed  to  correct  such  misconception.  This 
will  be  seen  in  the  annexed  example: 

The  secrecy  once  maintained  in  respect  to  the  parliamentary 
debates,  is  still  thought  needful  in  diidomacy;  and  in  virtue 
of  this  secret  diplomacy,  England  may  any  day  be  unawares 
betrayed  by  its  ministers  into  a  war  costing  a  hundred  thou- 
sand lives,  and  hundreds  of  millions  of  treasure:  yet  the 
English  pique  themselves  on  being  a  self-governed  people. 

The  two  subordinate  propositions,  ending  with  the  semi- 
colon and  colon  respectively,  almost  wholly  determine  the 
meaning  of  the  principal  proj)Osition  with  which  it  concludes; 
and  the  effect  would  be  lost  were  they  placed  last  instead  of 
first. 


SPENCER  285 

The  general  principle  of  right  arrangement  in  sentences, 
which  we  have  traced  in  its  application  to  the  leading  divi- 
sions of  them,  equally  determines  the  proper  order  of  their 
minor  divisions.  In  every  sentence  of  any  complexity  the 
complement  to  the  subject  contains  several  clauses,  and  that 
to  the  predicate  several  others;  and  these  may  be  arranged 
in  greater  or  less  conformity  to  the  law  of  easy  apprehension. 
Of  course  with  these,  as  with  the  larger  members,  the  succes- 
sion should  be  from  the  less  specific  to  the  more  specific  — 
from  the  abstract  to  the  concrete. 

Now,  however,  we  must  notice  a  further  condition  to 
be  fulfilled  in  the  proper  construction  of  a  sentence;  but 
still  a  condition  dictated  by  the  same  general  principle  with 
the  other:  the  condition,  namely,  that  the  words  and  expres- 
sions most  nearly  related  in  thought  shall  be  brought  the 
closest  together.  Evidently  the  single  words,  the  minor 
clauses,  and  the  leading  divisions  of  every  proposition,  sev- 
erally qualify  each  other.  The  longer  the  time  that  elapses 
between  the  mention  of  any  qualifying  member  and  the 
member  qualified,  the  longer  must  the  mind  be  exerted  in 
carrying  forward  the  qualifying  member  ready  for  use. 
And  the  more  numerous  the  qualifications  to  be  simultane- 
ously remembered  and  rightly  applied,  the  greater  will  be 
the  mental  power  expended,  and  the  smaller  the  effect  pro- 
duced. Hence,  other  things  equal,  force  will  be  gained  by 
so  arranging  the  members  of  a  sentence  that  these  suspen- 
sions shall  at  any  moment  be  the  fewest  in  number;  and  shall 
also  be  of  the  shortest  duration.  The  following  is  an  in- 
stance of  defective  combination: 

A  modern  newspaper-statement,  though  probably  true, 
would  be  laughed  at  if  quoted  in  a  book  as  testimony;  but 
the  letter  of  a  court  gossip  is  thought  good  historical  evidence, 
if  written  some  centuries  ago. 


286  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

A  rearrangement  of  this,  in  accordance  with  the  principle 
indicated  above,  will  be  found  to  increase  the  effect.    Thus: 

Though  probably  true,  a  modern  newspaper-statement 
quoted  in  a  book  as  testimony,  would  be  laughed  at;  but 
the  letter  of  a  court  gossip,  if  written  some  centuries  ago,  is 
thought  good  historical  evidence. 

By  making  this  change,  some  of  the  suspensions  are  avoided 
and  others  shortened;  while  there  is  less  liability  to  produce 
premature  conceptions.  The  passage  quoted  below  from 
"  Paradise  Lost  "  affords  a  fine  instance  of  a  sentence  well 
arranged;  alike  in  the  priority  of  the  subordinate  members, 
in  the  avoidance  of  long  and  numerous  suspensions,  and  in 
the  correspondence  between  the  order  of  the  clauses  and  the 
sequence  of  the  phenomena  described,  which,  by  the  way, 
is  a  further  prerequisite  to  easy  comprehension,  and  therefore 
to  effect. 

"  As  when  a  prowling  wolf, 

Whom  hunger  drives  to  seek  new  haunt  for  prey, 

Watching  where  shepherds  pen  their  flocks  at  eve, 

In  hurdled  cotes  amid  the  field  secure, 

Leaps  o'er  the  fence  with  ease  into  the  fold; 

Or  as  a  thief,  bent  to  unhoard  the  cash 

Of  some  rich  burgher,  whose  substantial  doors, 

Cross-barred,  and  bolted  fast,  fear  no  assault, 

In  at  the  window  climbs,  or  o'er  the  tiles; 

So  clomb  this  first  grand  thief  into  God's  fold ; 

So  since  into  his  church  lewd  hirelings  climb."  * 

The  habitual  use  of  sentences  in  which  all  or  most  of  the 
descriptive  and  limiting  elements  precede  those  described 
and  limited,  gives  rise  to  what  is  called  the  inverted  style: 
a  title  which  is,  however,  ])y  no  means  confined  to  this  struc- 
ture, but  is  often  used  where  the  order  of  the  words  is  simply 
unusual.     A    more   appropriate    title   would    be    the   direcl 


SPENCER  287 

style,  as  contrasted  with  the  other,  or  indirect  style :  the  pe- 
cuharity  of  the  one  being,  that  it  conveys  each  thought  into 
the  mind  step  by  step  with  httle  habihty  to  error;  and  of  the 
other,  that  it  gets  the  right  thought  conceived  by  a  series  of 
approximations. 

The  superiority  of  the  direct  over  the  indirect  form  of 
sentence,  imphed  by  the  several  conclusions  that  have  been 
drawn,  must  not,  however,  be  affirmed  without  reserva- 
tion. Though,  up  to  a  certain  point,  it  is  well  for  the  quali- 
fying clauses  of  a  period  to  precede  those  qualified;  yet,  as 
carrying  forward  each  qualifying  clause  costs  some  mental 
effort,  it  follows  that  when  the  number  of  them  and  the  time 
they  are  carried  become  great,  we  reach  a  limit  beyond  which 
more  is  lost  than  is  gained.  Other  things  equal,  the  arrange- 
ment should  be  such  that  no  concrete  image  shall  be  sug- 
gested until  the  materials  out  of  which  it  is  to  be  made 
have  been  presented.  And  yet,  as  lately  pointed  out,  other 
things  equal,  the  fewer  the  materials  to  be  held  at  once,  and 
the  shorter  the  distance  they  have  to  be  borne,  the  better. 
Hence  in  some  cases  it  becomes  a  question  whether  most 
mental  effort  will  be  entailed  by  the  many  and  long  suspen- 
sions, or  by  the  correction  of  successive  misconceptions. 

This  question  may  sometimes  be  decided  by  considering 
the  capacity  of  the  persons  addressed.  A  greater  grasp  of 
mind  is  required  for  the  ready  comprehension  of  thoughts 
expressed  in  the  direct  manner,  where  the  sentences  are  any- 
wise intricate.  To  recollect  a  number  of  preliminaries  stated 
in  elucidation  of  a  coming  idea,  and  to  apply  them  all  to 
the  formation  of  it  when  suggested,  demands  a  good  memory 
and  considerable  power  of  concentration.  To  one  pos- 
sessing these,  the  direct  method  will  mostly  seem  the  best ; 
while  to  one  deficient  in  them  it  will  seem  the  worst.  Just  as  it 
may  cost  a  strong  man  less  effort  to  carry  a  hundred-weight 


288  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

from  place  to  place  at  once,  than  by  a  stone  at  a  time;  so, 
to  an  active  mind  it  may  be  easier  to  bear  along  all  the  quah- 
fications  of  an  idea  and  at  once  rightly  form  it  when  named, 
than  to  first  imperfectly  conceive  such  idea  and  then  carry 
back  to  it,  one  by  one,  the  details  and  limitations  afterwards 
mentioned.  While  conversely,  as  for  a  boy  the  only  possible 
mode  of  transferring  a  hundred-weight  is  that  of  taking 
it  in  portions;  so  for  a  weak  mind  the  only  possible  mode  of 
forming  a  compound  conception  may  be  that  of  building 
it  up  by  carrying  separately  its  several  parts. 

That  the  indirect  method  —  the  method  of  conveying  the 
meaning  by  a  series  of  approximations — is  best  fitted  for 
the  uncultivated,  may  indeed  be  inferred  from  their  habitual 
use  of  it.  The  form  of  expression  adopted  by  the  savage,  as 
in  —  "  Water,  give  me,"  is  the  simplest  type  of  the  approxi- 
mate arrangement.  In  pleonasms,  which  are  comparatively 
prevalent  among  the  uneducated,  the  same  essential  structure 
is  seen;  as,  for  instance,  in  —  "The  men,  they  were  there." 
Again,  the  old  possessive  case  —  "The  king,  his  crown," 
conforms  to  the  like  order  of  thought.  Moreover,  the  fact 
that  the  indirect  mode  is  called  the  natural  one,  implies  that 
it  is  the  one  spontaneously  employed  by  the  common  people : 
that  is  —  the  one  easiest  for  undisciplined  minds. 

There  are  many  cases,  however,  in  which  neither  the  direct 
nor  the  indirect  structure  is  the  best;  but  where  an  inter- 
mediate structure  is  preferable  to  both.  When  the  number 
of  circumstances  and  qualifications  to  be  included  in  the 
sentence  is  great,  the  most  judicious  course  is  neither  to 
enumerate  them  all  before  introducing  the  idea  to  which  they 
belong,  nor  to  put  this  idea  first  and  let  it  be  remodelled  to 
agree  with  the  particulars  afterwards  mentioned;  but  to  do 
a  little  of  each.  Take  a  case.  It  is  desirable  to  avoid  so 
extremely  indirect  an  arrangement  as  the  following: 


SPENCKR  289 

"  We  came  to  our  journey's  end,  at  last,  with  no  small  dif- 
ficulty, after  much  fatigue,  through  deep  roads,  and  bad 
weather." 

Yet  to  transform  this  into  an  entirely  direct  sentence  would 
not  produce  a  satisfactory  effect;  as  witness: 

At  last,  with  no  small  difficulty,  after  much  fatigue,  through 
deep  roads,  and  bad  weather,  we  came  to  our  journey's 
end. 

Dr.  Whatcly,  from  whom  we  quote  the  first  of  these  two 
arrangements,  proposes  this  construction: 

"  At  last,  after  much  fatigue,  through  deep  roads  and  bad 
weather,  we  came,  with  no  small  difficulty,  to  our  journey's 
end." 

Here  it  will  be  observed  that  by  introducing  the  words  "  we 
came  "  a  little  earlier  in  the  sentence,  the  labor  of  carrying 
forward  so  many  particulars  is  diminished,  and  the  sub- 
sequent qualification  "with  no  small  difficulty  "  entails  an 
addition  to  the  thought  that  is  very  easily  made.  But  a 
further  improvement  may  be  produced  by  introducing  the 
words  "  we  came  "  still  earher;  especially  if  at  the  same 
time  the  qualifications  be  rearranged  in  conformity  with  the 
principle  already  explained,  that  the  more  abstract  elements 
of  the  thought  should  come  before  the  more  concrete.  Ob- 
serve the  better  effect  obtained  by  making  these  two  changes : 

At  last,  ,with  no  small  difficulty,  and  after  much  fatigue, 
we  came,  through  deep  roads  and  bad  weather,  to  our  jour- 
ney's end. 

This  reads  with  comparative  smoothness;  that  is,  with  less 
hindrance  from  suspensions  and  reconstructions  of  thought  — 
with  less  mental  effort. 


290  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

Before  dismissing  this  branch  of  our  subject,  it  should 
be  further  remarked,  that  even  when  addressing  the  most  vig- 
orous intellects,  the  direct  style  is  unfit  for  communicating 
ideas  of  a  complex  or  abstract  character.  So  long  as  the 
mind  has  not  much  to  do,  it  may  be  well  able  to  grasp  all 
the  preparatory  clauses  of  a  sentence,  and  to  use  them  ef- 
fectively; but  if  some  subtlety  in  the  argument  absorb  the 
attention  —  if  every  faculty  be  strained  in  endeavoring  to 
catch  the  speaker's  or  writer's  drift,  it  may  happen  that  the 
mind,  unable  to  carry  on  both  processes  at  once,  will  break 
down,  and  allow  the  elements  of  the  thought  to  lapse  into 
confusion. 

II.    The  Effect  of  Figurative  Language  Explained 

Turning  now  to  consider  figures  of  speech,  we  may  equally 
discern  the  same  general  law  of  effect.  Underlying  all  the 
rules  given  for  the  choice  and  right  use  of  them,  we  shall 
find  the  same  fundamental  requirement  —  economy  of  at- 
tention. It  is  indeed  chiefly  because  they  so  well  subserve 
this  requirement,  that  figures  of  speech  are  employed.  To 
bring  the  mind  more  easily  to  the  desired  conception,  is  in 
many  cases  solely,  and  in  all  cases  mainly,  their  object. 

Let  us  begin  with  the  figure  called  Synecdoche.  The  advan- 
tage sometimes  gained  by  putting  a  part  for  the  whole,  is  due 
to  the  more  convenient,  or  more  accurate,  presentation  of  the 
idea.  If,  instead  of  saying  "  a  fleet  of  ten  ships,"  we  say  "  a 
fleet  of  ten  5ai/,"  the  picture  of  a  group  of  vessels  at  sea  is  more 
readily  suggested;  and  is  so  because  the  sails  constitute  the 
most  conspicuous  parts  of  vessels  so  circumstanced:  whereas 
the  word  ships  would  very  likely  remind  us  of  vessels  in  dock. 
Again,  to  say,  "All  hands  to  the  pumps,"  is  better  than  to 
say,  "All  men  to  the  pumps  "  ;   as  it  suggests  the  men  in  the 


SPENCER  291 

special  attitude  intended,  and  so  saves  effort.  Bringing  ^^ gray 
hairs  with  sorrow  to  the  grave,"  is  another  expression,  the 
effect  of  which  has  the  same  cause. 

The  occasional  increase  of  force  produced  by  Metonymy 
may  be  similarly  accounted  for.  "The  low  morality  of  the 
bar,''''  is  a  phrase  both  more  brief  and  significant  than  the 
literal  one  it  stands  for.  A  belief  in  the  ultimate  supremacy 
of  intelligence  over  brute  force,  is  conveyed  in  a  more  con- 
crete, and  therefore  more  rcahzable  form,  if  we  substitute  the 
pen  and  the  sword  for  the  two  abstract  terms.  To  say,  "  Be- 
ware of  drinking!  "  is  less  effective  than  to  say,  "  Beware  of 
the  bottle!  "  and  is  so,  clearly  because  it  calls  up  a  less  specific 
image. 

The  Simile  is  in  many  cases  used  chiefly  with  a  view  to 
ornament ;  but  whenever  it  increases  the  jorce  of  a  passage, 
it  does  so  by  being  an  economy.     Here  is  an  instance: 

The  illusion  that  great  men  and  great  events  came  oftener 
in  early  times  than  now,  is  partly  due  to  historical  perspec- 
tive. As  in  a  range  of  equidistant  columns,  the  furthest  off 
look  the  closest;  so,  the  conspicuous  objects  of  the  past  seem 
more  thickly  clustered  the  more  remote  they  are. 

To  construct  by  a  process  of  literal  explanation  the  thought 
thus  conveyed,  would  take  many  sentences,  and  the  first 
elements  of  the  picture  would  become  faint  while  the  imag- 
ination was  busy  in  adding  the  others.  But  by  the  help  of 
a  comparison  all  effort  is  saved;  the  picture  is  instantly 
realized,  and  its  full  effect  produced. 

Of  the  position  of  the  Simile,*  it  needs  only  to  remark, 

*  Properly  the  term  "simile"  is  applicable  only  to  the  entire  figure,  in- 
clusive of  the  two  things  compared  and  the  comparison  drawn  between 
them.  But  as  there  exists  no  name  for  the  illustrative  member  of  the  figure, 
there  seems  no  alternative  but  to  employ  "  simile  "  to  express  this  also.  This 
context  will  in  each  case  show  in  which  sense  the  word  is  used. 


292  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

that  what  has  been  said  respecting  the  order  of  the  adjective 
and  substantive,  predicate  and  subject,  principal  and  sub- 
ordinate propositions,  &c.,  is  applicable  here.  As  whatever 
qualifies  should  precede  whatever  is  qualified,  force  will  gen- 
erally be  gained  by  j^lacing  the  simile  before  the  object  to 
which  it  is  applied.  That  this  arrangement  is  the  best,  may 
be  seen  in  the  following  passage  from  the  "  Lady  of  the  Lake  "  : 

"  As  wreath  of  snow,  on  mountain-breast, 
Slides  from  the  rock  that  gave  it  rest, 
Poor  Ellen  glided  from  her  stay, 
And  at  the  Monarch's  feet  she  lay." 

Inverting  these  couplets  will  be  found  to  diminish  the  effect 
considerably.  There  are  cases,  however,  even  where  the 
simile  is  a  simple  one,  in  which  it  may  with  advantage  be 
placed  last ;  as  in  these  fines  from  Alexander  Smith's  "  Life 

"  I  see  the  future  stretch 
All  dark  and  barren  as  a  rainy  sea." 

The  reason  for  this  seems  to  be,  that  so  abstract  an  idea  as 
that  attaching  to  the  word  "  future,"  does  not  present  itself 
to  the  mind  in  any  definite  form,  and  hence  the  subsequent 
arrival  at  the  simile  entails  no  reconstruction  of  the  thought. 

Such,  however,  are  not  the  only  cases  in  which  this  order 
is  the  most  forcible.  As  the  advantage  of  putting  the  simile 
before  the  object  depends  on  its  being  carried  forward  in  the 
mind  to  assist  in  forming  an  image  of  the  object,  it  must 
happen  that  if,  from  length  or  complexity,  it  cannot  be  so 
carried  forward,  the  advantage  is  not  gained.  The  annexed 
sonnet,  by  Coleridge,  is  defective  from  this  cause: 

"  As  when  a  child  on  some  long  winter's  night 
Affrighted  clinging  to  its  grandam's  knees 
With  eager  wond'ring  and  perturb'd  delight 
Listens  strange  tales  of  fearful  dark  decrees 


SPENCER  293 

Mutter'd  to  wretch  by  necromantic  spell ; 

Or  of  those  hags,  who  at  the  witching  time 
Of  murky  midnight  ride  the  air  sublime, 

And  mingle  foul  embrace  with  fiends  of  hell: 

Cold  horror  drinks  its  blood  !     Anon  the  tear 
More  gentle  starts,  to  hear  the  beldame  tell 
Of  pretty  babes,  that  loved  each  other  dear, 

Murder'd  by  cruel  uncle's  mandate  fell: 

Even  such  the  shivering  joys  thy  tones  impart, 
Even  so  thou,  Siddons !  meltest  my  sad  heart ! " 

Here,  from  the  lapse  of  time  and  accumulation  of  circum- 
stances, the  first  part  of  the  comparison  is  forgotten  before 
its  application  is  reached,  and  requires  rereading.  Had 
the  main  idea  been  first  mentioned,  less  effort  would  have  been 
required  to  retain  it,  and  to  modify  the  conception  of  it  into 
harmony  with  the  comparison,  than  to  remember  the  com- 
parison, and  refer  back  to  its  successive  features  for  help  in 
forming  the  final  image. 

The  superiority  of  the  Metaphor  to  the  Simile  is  ascribed 
by  Dr.  Whately  to  the  fact  that  "  all  men  are  more  gratified 
at  catching  the  resemblance  for  themselves,  than  in  having 
it  pointed  out  to  them."  But  after  what  has  been  said,  the 
great  economy  it  achieves  will  seem  the  more  probable  cause. 
Lear's  exclamation  — 

"  Ingratitude  !  thou  marble-hearted  fiend," 

would  lose  part  of  its  effect  were  it  changed  into  — 

"Ingratitude!  thou  fiend  with  heart  hke  marble"; 

and  the  loss  would  result  partly  from  the  position  of  the 
simile  and  partly  from  the  extra  number  of  words  required. 
When  the  comparison  is  an  involved  one,  the  greater  force 
of  the  metaphor,  consequent  on  its  greater  brevity,  becomes 


294  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

much  more  conspicuous.  If,  drawing  an  analogy  between 
mental  and  physical  phenomena,  we  say, 

As,  in  passing  through  the  crystal,  beams  of  white  light  are 
decomposed  into  the  colors  of  the  rainbow;  so,  in  traversing 
the  soul  of  the  poet,  the  colorless  rays  of  truth  are  transformed 
into  brightly- tinted  poetry, 

it  is  clear  that  in  receiving  the  double  set  of  words  expressing 
the  two  halves  of  the  comparison,  and  in  carrying  the  one  half 
to  the  other,  considerable  attention  is  absorbed.  Most  of  this 
is  saved,  however,  by  putting  the  comparison  in  a  metaphorical 
form,  thus: 

The  white  light  of  truth,  in  traversing  the  many-sided  trans- 
parent soul  of  the  poet,  is  refracted  into  iris-hued  poetry. 

How  much  is  conveyed  in  a  few  words  by  the  help  of 
the  Metaphor,  and  how  vivid  the  effect  consequently  pro- 
duced, may  be  abundantly  exemplified.  From  "  A  Life 
Drama  "  may  be  quoted  the  phrase, 

"  I  speared  him  with  a  jest," 

as  a  fine  instance  among  the  many  which  that  poem  con- 
tains, A  passage  in  the  "  Prometheus  Unbound,"  of  Shelley, 
displays  the  power  of  the  Metaphor  to  great  advantage: 

"  Methought  among  the  lawns  together 
We  wandered,  underneath  the  young  gray  dawn, 
And  multitudes  of  dense  white  fleecy  clouds 
Were  wandering  in  thick  flocks  along  the  mountains 
Shepherded  by  the  slow,  unwilling  wind." 

This  last  expression  is  remarkable  for  the  distinctness  with 
which  it  realizes  the  features  of  the  scene:  bringing  the 
mind,  as  it  were,  l)y  a  l)()und  to  the  desired  concei)tion. 

But  a  limit  is  put  to  the  advantageous  use  of  the  Meta- 
phor, by  the  condition  that  it  must  be  sufficiently  simple 


SPENCER  295 

to  be  understood  from  a  hint.  Evidently,  if  there  be  any 
obscurity  in  the  meaning  or  appHcation  of  it,  no  economy 
of  attention  will  be  gained;  but  rather  the  reverse.  Hence, 
when  the  comparison  is  complex,  it  is  usual  to  have  recourse 
to  the  Simile.  There  is,  however,  a  species  of  figure,  some- 
times classed  under  Allegory,  but  which  might,  perhaps,  be 
better  called  Compound  Metaphor,  that  enables  us  to  retain 
the  brevity  of  the  metaphorical  form  even  where  the  analogy 
is  intricate.  This  is  done  by  indicating  the  apphcation  of  the 
figure  at  the  outset,  and  then  leaving  the  mind  to  continue  the 
parallel.  Emerson  has  employed  it  with  great  effect  in  the 
first  of  his  "  Lectures  on  the  Times  ": 

"The  main  interest  which  any  aspects  of  the  Times  can 
have  for  us,  is  the  great  spirit  which  gazes  through  them, 
the  light  which  they  can  shed  on  the  wonderful  questions, 
What  are  we,  and  Whither  we  tend  ?  We  do  not  wish  to  be 
deceived.  Here  we  drift,  like  white  sail  across  the  wild  ocean, 
now  bright  on  the  wave,  now  darkling  in  the  trough  of  the 
sea;  but  from  what  port  did  we  sail?  Who  knows?  Or 
to  what  port  are  we  bound  ?  Who  knows  ?  There  is  no  one 
to  tell  us  but  such  poor  weather-tossed  mariners  as  ourselves, 
whom  we  speak  as  we  pass,  or  who  have  hoisted  some  signal, 
or  floated  to  us  some  letter  in  a  bottle  from  far.  But  what 
know  they  more  than  we  ?  They  also  found  themselves 
on  this  wondrous  sea.  No;  from  the  older  sailors  nothing. 
Over  all  their  speaking-trumpets  the  gray  sea  and  the  loud 
winds  answer,  Not  in  us;  not  in  Time." 

The  division  of  the  Simile  from  the  Metaphor  is  by  no 
means  a  definite  one.  Between  the  one  extreme  in  which  the 
two  elements  of  the  comparison  are  detailed  at  full  length 
and  the  analogy  pointed  out,  and  the  other  extreme  in  which 
the  comparison  is  implied  instead  of  stated,  come  intermediate 
forms,  in  which  the  comparison  is  partly  stated  and  partly 
implied.     For  instance: 


296  THEORIES   OE  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

"Astonished  at  the  performances  of  the  EngHsh  plough,  the 
Hindoos  paint  it,  set  it  up,  and  worship  it;  thus  turning  a 
tool  into  an  idol:    linguists  do  the  same  with  language." 

There  is  an  evident  advantage  in  leaving  the  reader  or 
hearer  to  complete  the  figure.  And  generally  these  inter- 
mediate forms  are  good  in  proportion  as  they  do  this;  pro- 
vided the  mode  of  completing  it  be  obvious. 

Passing  over  much  that  may  be  said  of  like  purport  upon 
Hyberbole,  Personification,  Apostrophe,  &c.,  let  us  close  our 
remarks  upon  construction  by  a  typical  example.  The 
general  principle  which  has  been  enunciated  is,  that  other 
things  equal,  the  force  of  all  verbal  forms  and  arrangements 
is  great,  in  proportion  as  the  time  and  mental  effort  they  de- 
mand from  the  recipient  is  small.  The  corollaries  from  this 
general  principle  have  been  severally  illustrated;  and  it  has 
been  shown  that  the  relative  goodness  of  any  two  modes  of 
expressing  an  idea,  may  be  determined  by  observing  which 
requires  the  shortest  process  of  thought  for  its  comprehension. 
But  though  conformity  in  particular  points  has  been  exem- 
plified, no  cases  of  complete  conformity  have  yet  been  quoted. 
It  is  indeed  difficult  to  find  them;  for  the  English  idiom  does 
not  commonly  permit  the  order  which  theory  dictates.  A 
few,  however,  occur  in  Ossian.     Here  is  one : 

"  As  autumn's  dark  storms  pour  from  two  echoing  hills, 
so  towards  each  other  approached  the  heroes.  As  two  dark 
streams  from  high  rocks  meet  and  mix,  and  roar  on  the  plain: 
loud,  rough,  and  dark  in  battle  meet  Lochlin  and  Inisfail. 
...  As  the  troubled  noise  of  the  ocean  when  roll  the  waves 
on  high;  as  the  last  peal  of  the  thunder  of  heaven;  such  is 
noise  of  the  battle." 

Except  in  the  position  of  the  verlj  in  the  first  two  similes, 
the  theoretically  best  arrangement  is  fully  carried  out  in  each 
of  these  sentences.    The  simile  comes  before  the  qualified 


SPENCER  297 

image,  the  adjectives  before  the  substantives,  the  predicate 
and  copula  before  the  subject,  and  their  respective  com- 
plements before  them.  That  the  passage  is  open  to  the  charge 
of  being  bombastic  proves  nothing;  or  rather,  proves  our  case. 
For  what  is  bombast  but  a  force  of  expression  too  great  for 
the  magnitude  of  the  ideas  embodied?  All  that  may  rightly 
be  inferred  is,  that  only  in  very  rare  cases,  and  then  only  to 
produce  a  climax,  should  all  the  conditions  of  effective  ex- 
pression be  fulfilled. 

III.    Arrangement  of   Minor  Images  in  Building  up  a 
Thought 

Passing  on  to  a  more  complex  application  of  the  doctrine 
v^^ith  which  we  set  out,  it  must  now  be  remarked,  that  not  only 
in  the  structure  of  sentences,  and  the  use  of  figures  of  speech, 
may  economy  of  the  recipient's  mental  energy  be  assigned  as 
the  cause  of  force;  but  that  in  the  choice  and  arrangement  of 
the  minor  images,  out  of  which  some  large  thought  is  to  be 
built  up,  we  may  trace  the  same  condition  to  effect.  To  select 
from  the  sentiment,  scene,  or  event  described  those  typical 
elements  which  carry  many  others  along  with  them;  and  so, 
by  saying  a  few  things  but  suggesting  many,  to  abridge  the 
description;  is  the  secret  of  producing  a  vivid  impression.  An 
extract  from  Tennyson's  "Mariana"  will  well  illustrate  this: 

"All  day  within  the  dreamy  house, 
The  doors  upon  their  hinges  creak'd, 
The  blue  fly  sung  in  the  pane;  the  mouse 
Behind  the  mouldering  wainscot  shriek'd, 
Or  from  the  crevice  peer'd  about." 

The  several  circumstances  here  specified  bring  with  them 
many  appropriate  associations.  Our  attention  is  rarely 
drawn  by  the  buzzing  of  a  fly  in  the  window,  save  when  every- 
thing is  still.     While  the  inmates  are  moving  about  the  house, 


298  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

mice  usually  keep  silence;  and  it  is  only  when  extreme  quiet- 
ness reigns  that  they  peep  from  their  retreats.  Hence  each 
of  the  facts  mentioned,  presupposing  numerous  others,  calls 
up  these  with  more  or  less  distinctness;  and  revives  the  feeling 
of  dull  solitude  with  which  they  are  connected  in  our  expe- 
rience. Were  all  these  facts  detailed  instead  of  suggested, 
the  attention  would  be  so  frittered  away  that  little  impression 
of  dreariness  would  be  produced.  Similarly  in  other  cases. 
Whatever  the  nature  of  the  thought  to  be  conveyed,  this  skilful 
selection  of  a  few  particulars  which  imply  the  rest,  is  the  key 
to  success.  In  the  choice  of  component  ideas,  as  in  the  choice 
of  expressions,  the  aim  must  be  to  convey  the  greatest  quantity 
of  thoughts  with  the  smallest  quantity  of  words. 

The  same  principle  may  in  some  cases  be  advantageously 
carried  yet  further,  by  indirectly  suggesting  some  entirely 
distinct  thought  in  addition  to  the  one  expressed.  Thus,  if 
we  say, 

The  head  of  a  good  classic  is  as  full  of  ancient  myths,  as 
that  of  a  servant-girl  of  ghost  stories; 

it  is  manifest  that  besides  the  fact  asserted,  there  is  an 
implied  opinion  respecting  the  small  value  of  classical 
knowledge:  and  as  this  implied  opinion  is  recognized 
much  sooner  than  it  can  be  put  into  words,  there  is  gain 
in  omitting  it.  In  other  cases,  again,  great  effect  is  pro- 
duced by  an  overt  omission;  provided  the  nature  of  the 
idea  left  out  is  obvious.  A  good  instance  of  this  occurs  in 
"Heroes  and  Hero-worship."  After  describing  the  way  in 
which  Burns  was  sacrificed  to  the  idle  curiosity  of  Lion- 
hunters  —  people  who  came  not  out  of  sympathy,  but  merely 
to  see  him  —  people  who  sought  a  little  amusement,  and  who 
got  their  amusement  while  "  the  Hero's  life  went  for  it  !  ** 
Carlyle  suggests  a  parallel  thus: 


SPENCER  299 

"  Richter  says,  in  the  Island  of  Sumatra  there  is  a  kind  of 
*  Light-chafers/  large  Fire-flies,  which  people  stick  upon  spits, 
and  illuminate  the  ways  with  at  night.  Persons  of  condition 
can  thus  travel  with  a  pleasant  radiance,  which  they  much 
admire.     Great  honor  to  the  Fire-flies !     But  —  !  —  " 

IV.     The  Superiority  of  Poetry  to  Prose  Explained 

Before  inquiring  whether  the  law  of  effect,  thus  far  traced, 
explains  the  superiority  of  poetry  to  prose,  it  will  be  needful  to 
notice  some  supplementary  causes  of  force  in  expression,  that 
have  not  yet  been  mentioned.  These  are  not,  properly  speak- 
ing, additional  causes;  but  rather  secondary  ones,  originating 
from  those  already  specified  —  reflex  results  of  them.  In 
the  first  place,  then,  we  may  remark  that  mental  excitement 
spontaneously  prompts  the  use  of  those  forms  of  speech  which 
have  been  pointed  out  as  the  most  effective.  ''  Out  with 
him  !  "  "  Away  with  him  !  "  are  the  natural  utterances 
of  angry  citizens  at  a  disturbed  meeting.  A  voyager,  describ- 
ing a  terrible  storm  he  had  witnessed,  would  rise  to  some  such 
climax  as  —  "  Crack  went  the  ropes  and  down  came  the 
mast."  Astonishment  may  be  heard  expressed  in  the  phrase 
—  "  Never  was  there  such  a  sight !  "  All  of  which  sentences 
are,  it  will  be  observed,  constructed  after  the  direct  type. 
Again,  everyone  knows  that  excited  persons  are  given  to 
figures  of  speech.  The  vituperation  of  the  vulgar  abounds 
with  them:  often,  indeed,  consists  of  little  else.  "  Beast," 
"  brute,"  "  gallows  rogue,"  "  cut-throat  villain,"  these,  and 
other  like  metaphors  and  metaphorical  epithets,  at  once  call 
to  mind  a  street  quarrel.  Further,  it  may  be  noticed  that 
extreme  brevity  is  another  characteristic  of  passionate  lan- 
guage. The  sentences  are  generally  incomplete;  the  particles 
are  omitted;  and  frequently  important  words  are  left  to  be 
gathered  from  the  context.    Great  admiration  does  not  vent 


300  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

itself  in  a  precise  proposition,  as  —  "  It  is  beautiful  ";  but 
in  the  simple  exclamation,  —  "  Beautiful !"  He  who,  when 
reading  a  lawyer's  letter,  should  say,  "  Vile  rascal !  "  would 
be  thought  angry;  while,  "  He  is  a  vile  rascal!  "  would  im- 
ply comparative  coolness.  Thus  we  see  that  alike  in  the 
order  of  the  words,  in  the  frequent  use  of  figures,  and  in  ex- 
treme conciseness,  the  natural  utterances  of  excitement  con- 
form to  the  theoretical  conditions  of  forcible  expression. 

Hence,  then,  the  higher  forms  of  speech  acquire  a  secondary 
strength  from  association.  Having,  in  actual  life,  habitually 
heard  them  in  connection  with  vivid  mental  impressions, 
and  having  been  accustomed  to  meet  with  them  in  the  most 
powerful  writing,  they  come  to  have  in  themselves  a 
species  of  force.  The  emotions  that  have  from  time  to 
time  been  produced  by  the  strong  thoughts  wrapped  up  in 
these  forms,  are  partially  aroused  by  the  forms  themselves. 
They  create  a  certain  degree  of  animation;  they  induce  a 
preparatory  sympathy ;  and  when  the  striking  ideas  looked  for 
are  reached,  they  are  the  more  vividly  realized. 

The  continuous  use  of  these  modes  of  expression  that  are 
alike  forcible  in  themselves  and  forcible  from  their  associa- 
tions, produces  the  peculiarly  impressive  species  of  com- 
position which  we  call  poetry.  Poetry,  we  shall  find,  habit- 
ually adopts  those  symbols  of  thought,  and  those  methods 
of  using  them,  which  instinct  and  analysis  agree  in  choosing 
as  most  effective ;  and  becomes  poetry  by  virtue  of  doing  this. 
On  turning  back  to  the  various  specimens  that  have  been 
quoted,  it  will  be  seen  that  the  direct  or  inverted  form  of  sen- 
tence predominates  in  them;  and  that  to  a  degree  quite  in- 
admissible in  prose.  And  not  only  in  the  frequency,  but  in 
what  is  termed  the  violence  of  the  inversions,  will  this  dis- 
tinction be  remarked.  In  the  abundant  use  of  figures,  again, 
we  may  recognize  the    same  truth.      Metaphors,   similes, 


SPENCER  301 

hyperboles,  and  personifications,  are  the  poet's  colors, 
which  he  has  liberty  to  employ  almost  without  limit.  We 
characterize  as  "poetical  "  the  prose  which  uses  these  appli- 
ances of  language  with  any  frecjucncy,  and  condemn  it  as 
"  over  florid  "  or  "  affected  "  long  before  they  occur  with  the 
profusion  allowed  in  verse.  Further,  let  it  be  remarked  that 
in  brevity  —  the  other  requisite  of  forcible  expression  which 
theory  points  out,  and  emotion  spontaneously  fulfils  — 
poetical  phraseology  similarly  differs  from  ordinary  phrase- 
ology. Imperfect  periods  are  frequent;  elisions  are  per- 
petual; and  many  of  the  minor  words,  which  would  be  deemed 
essential  in  prose,  are  dispensed  with. 

Thus  poetry,  regarded  as  a  vehicle  of  thought,  is  especially 
impressive  partly  because  it  obeys  all  the  laws  of  effective 
speech,  and  partly  because  in  so  doing  it  imitates  the  natural 
utterances  of  excitement.  While  the  matter  embodied  is 
idealized  emotion,  the  vehicle  is  the  idealized  language  of 
emotion.  As  the  musical  composer  catches  the  cadences 
in  which  our  feelings  of  joy  and  sympathy,  grief  and  despair, 
vent  themselves,  and  out  of  these  germs  evolves  melodies 
suggesting  higher  phases  of  these  feelings;  so,  the  poet  de- 
velops from  the  typical  expressions  in  which  men  utter  passion 
and  sentiment,  those  choice  forms  of  verbal  combination  in 
which  concentrated  passion  and  sentiment  may  be  fitly 
presented. 

There  is  one  peculiarity  of  poetry  conducing  much  to  its 
effect  —  the  peculiarity  which  is  indeed  usually  thought  its 
characteristic  one  —  still  remaining  to  be  considered :  we 
mean  its  rhythmical  structure.  This,  improbable  though 
it  seems,  will  be  found  to  come  under  the  same  generaliza- 
tion with  the  others.  Like  each  of  them,  it  is  an  idealization 
of  the  natural  language  of  strong  emotion,  which  is  known 
to  be  more  or  less  metrical  if  the  emotion  be  not  too  violent; 

tl    PA   Y 

S-^*T    T'/C    ES  r>  C   L   ''^E 
SA    TA  aAiiB^AA.  CM.IF«.RNIA 


302  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  like  each  of  them  it  is  an  economy  of  the  reader's  or 
hearer's  attention.  In  the  pecuhar  tone  and  manner  we  adopt 
in  uttering  versified  language,  may  be  discerned  its  relation- 
ship to  the  feelings;  and  the  pleasure  which  its  measured 
movement  gives  us,  is  ascribable  to  the  comparative  ease  with 
which  words  metrically  arranged  can  be  recognized. 

This  last  position  will  scarcely  be  at  once  admitted;  but 
a  little  explanation  will  show  its  reasonableness.  For  if, 
as  we  have  seen,  there  is  an  expenditure  of  mental  energy  in 
the  mere  act  of  hstening  to  verbal  articulations,  or  in  that  silent 
repetition  of  them  which  goes  on  in  reading  —  if  the  percep- 
tive faculties  must  be  in  active  exercise  to  identify  every 
syllable  —  then,  any  mode  of  so  combining  words  as  to  present 
a  regular  recurrence  of  certain  traits  which  the  mind  can 
anticipate,  will  diminish  that  strain  upon  the  attention  re- 
quired by  the  total  irregularity  of  prose.  Just  as  the  body, 
in  receiving  a  series  of  varying  concussions,  must  keep  the 
muscles  ready  to  meet  the  most  violent  of  them,  as  not  know- 
ing when  such  may  come;  so,  the  mind  in  receiving  unar- 
ranged  articulations,  must  keep  its  perceptives  active  enough 
to  recognize  the  least  easily  caught  sounds.  And  as,  if  the 
concussions  recur  in  a  definite  order,  the  body  may  husband 
its  forces  by  adjusting  the  resistance  needful  for  each  con- 
cussion; so,  if  the  syllables  be  rhythmically  arranged,  the 
mind  may  economize  its  energies  by  anticipating  the  attention 
required  for  each  syllable. 

Far-fetched  though  this  idea  will  perhaps  be  thought, 
a  little  introspection  will  countenance  it.  That  we  do  take 
advantage  of  metrical  language  to  adjust  our  perceptive 
faculties  to  the  force  of  the  expected  articulations,  is  clear 
from  the  fact  that  we  are  balked  by  halting  versification. 
Much  as  at  the  Ijottom  of  a  tlight  of  stairs,  a  step  more  or  less 
than  we  counted  u])on  gives  us  a  shock;   so,  too,  docs  a  mis- 


SPENCER 


303 


placed  accent  or  a  supernumerary  syllable.  In  the  one  case, 
we  know  that  there  is  an  erroneous  preadjustment;  and  we 
can  scarcely  doubt  that  there  is  one  in  the  other.  But  if  we 
habitually  preadjust  our  perceptions  to  the  measured  move- 
ment of  verse,  the  physical  analogy  above  given  renders  it 
probable  that  by  so  doing  we  economize  attention ;  and  hence 
that  metrical  language  is  more  effective  than  prose,  because 
it  enables  us  to  do  this.^ 

Were  there  space,  it  might  be  worth  while  to  inquire 
whether  the  pleasure  we  take  in  rhyme,  and  also  that  which 
we  take  in  euphony,  are  not  partly  ascribable  to  the  same  gen- 
eral cause. 

Part  II 

Causes  of  Force  in  Language  which  depend  upon  Economy 
of  the  Mental  Sensibilities 

A  few  paragraphs  only  can  be  devoted  to  a  second  division 
of  our  subject  that  here  presents  itself.  To  pursue  in  detail 
the  laws  of  effect,  as  applying  to  the  larger  features  of  com- 
position, would  carry  us  beyond  our  limits.  But  we  may 
briefly  indicate  a  further  aspect  of  the  general  principle 
hitherto  traced  out,  and  hint  a  few  of  its  wider  appli- 
cations. 

Thus  far,  then,  we  have  considered  only  those  causes  of 
force  in  language  which  depend  upon  economy  of  the  mental 
energies:  we  have  now  to  glance  at  those  which  depend  upon 
economy  of  the  mental  sensibilities.  Questionable  though 
this  division  may  be  as  a  psychological  one,  it  will  yet  serve 
roughly  to  indicate  the  remaining  field  of  investigation.  It 
will  suggest  that  besides  considering  the  extent  to  which  any 
faculty  or  group  of  faculties  is  tasked  in  receiving  a  form  of 
words  and  realizing  its  contained  idea,  we  have  to  consider  the 


304  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

State  in  which  this  facuky  or  group  of  facuhies  is  left;  and 
how  the  reception  of  subsequent  sentences  and  images  will 
be  influenced  by  that  state.  Without  going  at  length  into  so 
wide  a  topic  as  the  exercise  of  faculties  and  its  reactive  effects, 
it  will  be  sufficient  here  to  call  to  mind  that  every  faculty 
(when  in  a  state  of  normal  activity)  is  most  capable  at  the 
outset;  and  that  the  change  in  its  condition,  which  ends  in 
what  we  term  exhaustion,  begins  simultaneously  with  its 
exercise.  This  generalization,  with  which  we  are  all  familiar 
in  our  bodily  experiences,  and  which  our  daily  language 
recognizes  as  true  of  the  mind  as  a  whole,  is  equally  true  of 
each  mental  power,  from  the  simplest  of  the  senses  to  the 
most  complex  of  the  sentiments.  If  we  hold  a  flower  to  the 
nose  for  long,  we  become  insensible  to  its  scent.  We  say 
of  a  very  brilliant  flash  of  lightning  that  it  blinds  us;  which 
means  that  our  eyes  have  for  a  time  lost  their  ability  to  ap- 
preciate light.  After  eating  a  quantity  of  honey,  we  are  apt  to 
think  our  tea  is  without  sugar.  The  phrase  "  a  deafening 
roar,"  implies  that  men  find  a  very  loud  sound  temporarily 
incapacitates  them  for  hearing  faint  ones.  To  a  hand  which 
has  for  some  time  carried  a  heavy  body,  small  bodies  after- 
wards lifted  seem  to  have  lost  their  weight.  Now,  the  truth 
at  once  recognized  in  these,  its  extreme  manifestations,  may 
be  traced  throughout.  It  may  be  shown  that  alike  in  the 
reflective  faculties,  in  the  imagination,  in  the  perceptions 
of  the  beautiful,  the  ludicrous,  the  sublime,  in  the  sentiments, 
the  instincts,  in  all  the  mental  powers,  however  we  may 
classify  them  —  action  exhausts;  and  that  in  proportion 
as  the  action  is  violent,  the  subsequent  prostration  is 
great. 

Equally,  throughout  the  whole  nature,  may  be  traced 
the  law  that  exercised  faculties  are  ever  tending  to  resume 
their  original  state.     Not  only  after  continued  rest,  do  they 


SPEMCER  305 

regain  their  full  power  —  not  only  do  brief  cessations  par- 
tially reinvigorate  them;  but  even  while  they  are  in  action, 
the  resulting  exhaustion  is  ever  being  neutralized.  The 
two  processes  of  waste  and  repair  go  on  together.  Hence 
with  faculties  habitually  exercised  —  as  the  senses  of  all 
persons,  or  the  muscles  of  any  one  who  is  strong  —  it  hap- 
pens that,  during  moderate  activity,  the  repair  is  so  nearly 
equal  to  the  waste,  that  the  diminution  of  power  is  scarcely 
appreciable;  and  it  is  only  when  the  activity  has  been  long 
continued,  or  has  been  very  violent,  that  the  repair  becomes 
so  far  in  arrear  of  the  waste  as  to  produce  a  perceptible  pros- 
tration. In  all  cases,  however,  when,  by  the  action  of  a 
faculty,  waste  has  been  incurred,  some  lapse  of  time  must 
take  place  before  full  efficiency  can  be  reacquired;  and  this 
time  must  be  long  in  proportion  as  the  waste  has  been 
great. 

Keeping  in  mind  these  general  truths,  we  shall  be  in 
a  condition  to  understand  certain  causes  of  effect  in  compo- 
sition now  to  be  considered.  Every  perception  received,  and 
every  conception  realized,  entailing  some  amount  of  waste  — ■ 
or,  as  Liebig  would  say,  some  change  of  matter  in  the  brain; 
and  the  efficiency  of  the  faculties  subject  to  this  waste  being 
thereby  temporarily,  though  often  but  momentarily,  dimin- 
ished; the  resulting  partial  inabihty  must  affect  the  acts  of 
perception  and  conception  that  immediately  succeed.  And 
hence  we  may  expect  that  the  vividness  with  which  images 
are  realized  will,  in  many  cases,  depend  on  the  order  of 
their  presentation:  even  when  one  order  is  as  convenient  to 
the  understanding  as  the  other. 

There  are  sundry  facts  which  alike  illustrate  this,  and 
are  explained  by  it.  Chmax  is  one  of  them.  The  marked 
effect  obtained  by  placing  last  the  most  striking  of  any  series 
of  images,  and  the  weakness  —  often  the  ludicrous  weakness 


306  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

—  produced  by  reversing  this  arrangement,  depends  on  the 
general  law  indicated.  As  immediately  after  looking  at  the 
sun  we  cannot  perceive  the  light  of  a  fire,  while  by  looking  at 
the  fire  first  and  the  sun  afterwards  we  can  perceive  both; 
so,  after  receiving  a  brilliant,  or  weighty,  or  terrible  thought, 
we  cannot  appreciate  a  less  brilliant,  less  weighty,  or  less 
terrible  one,  while,  by  reversing  the  order,  we  can  appreciate 
each.  In  Antithesis,  again,  we  may  recognize  the  same  gen- 
eral truth.  The  opposition  of  two  thoughts  that  are  the 
reverse  of  each  other  in  some  prominent  trait,  insures  an  im- 
pressive effect;  and  does  this  by  giving  a  momentary  re- 
laxation to  the  faculties  addressed.  If,  after  a  series  of 
images  of  an  ordinary  character,  appealing  in  a  moderate 
degree  to  the  sentiment  of  reverence,  or  approbation,  or 
beauty,  the  mind  has  presented  to  it  a  very  insignificant,  a 
very  unworthy,  or  a  very  ugly  image;  the  faculty  of  reverence, 
or  approbation,  or  beauty,  as  the  case  may  be,  having  for  the 
time  nothing  to  do,  tends  to  resume  its  full  power;  and  will 
immediately  afterwards  appreciate  a  vast,  admirable,  or 
beautiful  image  better  than  it  would  otherwise  do.  Con- 
versely, where  the  idea  of  absurdity  due  to  extreme  insignifi- 
cance is  to  be  produced,  it  may  be  greatly  intensified  by 
placing  it  after  something  highly  impressive:  especially  if  the 
form  of  phrase  implies  that  something  still  more  impressive 
is  coming.  A  good  illustration  of  the  effect  gained  by  thus 
presenting  a  petty  idea  to  a  consciousness  that  has  not  yet 
recovered  from  the  shock  of  an  exciting  one,  occurs  in  a  sketch 
by  Balzac.  His  hero  writes  to  a  mistress  who  has  cooled 
towards  him,  the  following  letter: 

"Madame,  —  Votre  conduite  m'^tonne  autant  qu'elle 
m'affiige.  Non  contente  dc  me  dechirer  le  cceur  par  vos 
dcdains,  vous  avez  I'indelicatesse  de  me  retenir  unc  brosse 


SPENCER  307 

a  dents,  que  mes  moyens  ne  me  permettent  pas  de  remplacer, 
mes  proprietes  etant  grevees  d'hypotheques. 

"  Adieu,  trop  belle  et  trop  ingrate  amie !  Puissions-nous 
nous  revoir  dans  un  monde  meilleur! 

"  Charles  Edouard." 

Thus  we  see  that  the  phenomena  of  Climax,  Antithesis, 
and  Anticlimax,  ahke  result  from  this  general  principle. 
Improbable  as  these  momentary  variations  in  susceptibility 
may  seem,  we  cannot  doubt  their  occurrence  when  we  con- 
template the  analogous  variations  in  the  susceptibility  of  the 
senses.  Referring  once  more  to  phenomena  of  vision,  every- 
one knows  that  a  patch  of  black  on  a  white  ground  looks 
blacker,  and  a  patch  of  white  on  a  black  ground  looks  whiter, 
than  elsewhere.  As  the  blackness  and  the  whiteness  must 
really  be  the  same,  the  only  assignable  cause  for  this  is  a 
difference  in  their  actions  upon  us,  dependent  upon  the 
different  states  of  our  faculties.  It  is  simply  a  visual  an- 
tithesis. 

But  this  extension  of  the  general  principle  of  economy 
—  this  further  condition  to  effective  composition,  that  the 
sensitiveness  of  the  faculties  must  be  continuously  hus- 
banded —  includes  much  more  than  has  been  yet  hinted. 
It  implies  not  only  that  certain  arrangements  and  certain 
juxtapositions  of  connected  ideas  are  best;  but  that  some 
modes  of  dividing  and  presenting  a  subject  will  be  more 
striking  than  others;  and  that,  too,  irrespective  of  its  logical 
cohesion.  It  shows  why  we  must  progress  from  the  less 
interesting  to  the  more  interesting;  and  why  not  only  the 
composition  a;s  a  whole,  but  each  of  its  successive  portions, 
should  tend  towards  a  climax.  At  the  same  time,  it  forbids 
long  continuity  of  the  same  kind  of  thought,  or  repeated 
production  of  like  effects.     It  warns  us  against  the  error 


308  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

committed  both  by  Pope  in  his  poems  and  by  Bacon  in  his 
essays  —  the  error,  namely,  of  constantly  employing  forcible 
forms  of  expression:  and  it  points  out  that  as  the  easiest 
posture  by  and  by  becomes  fatiguing,  and  is  with  pleasure 
exchanged  for  one  less  easy,  so,  the  most  perfectly  con- 
structed sentences  will  soon  weary,  and  relief  will  be  given 
by  using  those  of  an  inferior  kind. 

Further,  we  may  infer  from  it  not  only  that  we  should  avoid 
generally  combining  our  words  in  one  manner,  however 
good,  or  working  out  our  figures  and  illustrations  in  one 
way,  however  telling ;  but  that  we  should  avoid  anything 
like  uniform  adherence,  even  to  the  wider  conditions  of 
effect.  We  should  not  make  every  section  of  our  subject 
progress  in  interest;  we  should  not  always  rise  to  a  climax. 
As  we  saw  that,  in  single  sentences,  it  is  but  rarely  allow- 
able to  fulfil  all  the  conditions  to  strength;  so,  in  the  larger 
sections  of  a  composition  we  must  not  often  conform  entirely 
to  the  law  indicated.  We  must  subordinate  the  component 
effect  to  the  total  effect. 

In  deciding  how  practically  to  carry  out  the  principles 
of  artistic  composition,  we  may  derive  help  by  bearing  in 
mind  a  fact  already  pointed  out  —  the  fitness  of  certain  verbal 
arrangements  for  certain  kinds  of  thought.  That  constant 
variety  in  the  mode  of  presenting  ideas  which  the  theory 
demands,  will  in  a  great  degree  result  from  a  skilful  adapta- 
tion of  the  form  to  the  matter.  We  saw  how  the  direct  or 
inverted  sentence  is  spontaneously  used  by  excited  people; 
and  how  their  language  is  also  characterized  by  figures  of 
speech  and  by  extreme  brevity.  Hence  these  may  with  ad- 
vantage predominate  in  emotional  passages;  and  may 
increase  as  the  emotion  rises.  On  the  other  hand,  for  com- 
plex ideas,  the  indirect  sentence  seems  the  best  vehicle.  In 
conversation,  the  excitement  produced  by  the  near  approach 


SPENCER  309 

to  a  desired  conclusion,  will  often  show  itself  in  a  series  of 
short,  sharp  sentences;  while,  in  impressing  a  view  already 
enunciated,  we  generally  make  our  periods  voluminous  by 
piling  thought  upon  thought.  These  natural  modes  of  pro- 
cedure may  serve  as  guides  in  writing.  Keen  observation 
and  skilful  analysis  would,  in  like  manner,  detect  further 
peculiarities  of  expression  produced  by  other  attitudes  of 
mind;  and  by  paying  due  attention  to  all  such  traits,  a 
writer  possessed  of  sutJEicient  versatility  might  make  some 
approach  to  a  completely  organized  work. 

This  species  of  composition  which  the  law  of  effect  points 
out  as  the  perfect  one,  is  the  one  which  high  genius  tends 
naturally  to  produce.  As  we  found  that  the  kinds  of  sen- 
tence which  are  theoretically  best,  are  those  generally 
employed  by  superior  minds,  and  by  inferior  minds  when 
excitement  has  raised  them;  so,  we  shall  find  that  the  ideal 
form  for  a  poem,  essay,  or  fiction,  is  that  which  the  ideal 
writer  would  evolve  spontaneously.  One  in  whom  the  powers 
of  expression  fully  responded  to  the  state  of  feeling,  would 
unconsciously  use  that  variety  in  the  mode  of  presenting  his 
thoughts,  which  Art  demands.  This  constant  employment 
of  one  species  of  phraseology,  which  all  have  now  to  strive 
against,  imphes  an  undeveloped  faculty  of  language.  To 
have  a  specific  style  is  to  be  poor  in  speech.  If  we  remember 
that,  in  the  far  past,  men  had  only  nouns  and  verbs  to  convey 
their  ideas  with,"  and  that  from  then  to  now  the  growth  has 
been  towards  a  greater  number  of  implements  of  thought, 
and  consequently  towards  a  greater  complexity  and  variety 
in  their  combinations;  we  may  infer  that  we  are  now,  in 
our  use  of  sentences,  much  what  the  primitive  man  was  in 
his  use  of  words;  and  that  a  continuance  of  the  process  that 
has  hitherto  gone  on,  must  produce  increasing  heterogeneity 
in  our  modes  of  expression.     As  now,  in  a  fine  nature,  the 


310  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IX  LITERATURE 

play  of  the  features,  the  tones  of  the  voice  and  its  cadences, 
vary  in  harmony  with  every  thought  uttered;  so,  in  one 
possessed  of  a  fully  developed  power  of  speech,  the  mould 
in  which  each  combination  of  words  is  cast  will  similarly 
vary  with,  and  be  appropriate  to,  the  sentiment. 

That  a  perfectly  endowed  man  must  unconsciously  write 
in  all  styles,  we  may  infer  from  considering  how  styles 
originate.  Why  is  Johnson  pompous.  Goldsmith  simple? 
Why  is  one  author  abrupt,  another  rhythmical,  another  con- 
cise? Evidently  in  each  case  the  habitual  mode  of  utterance 
must  depend  upon  the  habitual  balance  of  the  nature.  The 
predominant  feelings  have  by  use  trained  the  intellect  to  rep- 
resent them.  But  while  long,  though  unconscious,  discipline 
has  made  it  do  this  efficiently,  it  remains,  from  lack  of  practice, 
incapable  of  doing  the  same  for  the  less  active  feelings; 
and  when  these  are  excited,  the  usual  verbal  forms  undergo 
but  sHght  modifications.  Let  the  powers  of  speech  be  fully 
developed,  however  —  let  the  ability  of  the  intellect  to  utter 
the  emotions  be  complete;  and  this  fixity  of  style  will  dis- 
appear. The  perfect  writer  will  express  himself  as  Junius, 
when  in  the  Junius  frame  of  mind ;  when  he  feels  as  Lamb  felt, 
will  use  a  like  familiar  speech;  and  will  fall  into  the  rugged- 
ness  of  Carlyle  when  in  a  Carlylean  mood.  Now  he  will  be 
rhythmical  and  now  irregular;  here  his  language  will  be  plain 
and  there  ornate;  sometimes  his  sentences  will  be  balanced 
and  at  other  times  unsymmetrical;  for  a  while  there  will  be 
considerable  sameness,  and  then  again  great  variety.  His 
mode  of  expression  naturally  responding  to  his  state  of  feeling, 
there  will  flow  from  his  pen  a  composition  changing  to  the 
same  degree  that  the  aspects  of  his  subject  change.  He 
will  thus  without  effort  conform  to  what  we  have  seen  to  be 
the  laws  of  effect.  And  while  his  work  presents  to  the  reader 
that  variety  needful  to  prevent  continuous  exertion  of  the 


SPENCER  3 1 1 

same  faculties,  it  will  also  answer  to  the  description  of  all 
highly  organized  products,  both  of  man  and  of  nature:  it 
will  be,  not  a  series  of  hke  parts  simply  placed  in  juxta- 
position, but  one  whole  made  up  of  unhke  parts  that  are 
mutually  dependent. 

•  Henry  Home,  Lord  Kames  (i  696-1 782)  ;  observe  the  preferable  spelling. 
^  On  this  head  consult  Jespersen's  Growth  and  Structure  oj  the  English 

Language  —  a  fascinating  work;  see  also  Greenough  and  Kittredge,  Words 
and  their  Ways  in  English  Speech  (1901),  Chap.  Ill,  Learned  Words  and 
Popular  Words  (pp.  19-28). 

^  Compare  Buffon,  above,  p.  176. 

*  Paradise  Lost,  Book  IV,  11.  183-193. 

^  Compare  Aristotle,  above,  pp.  73-74. 

'  This  is  necessarily  a  matter  of  conjecture. 


312  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

XIV 

GEORGE  HENRY  LEWES  (1817-1878) 

The  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature,  Chapters  V,  VI 

(1865) 

[These  two  chapters  constitute  the  last  third  of  the  serial 
treatise  contributed  by  Lewes  to  the  Fortnightly  Review 
in  the  capacity  of  its  first  editor.  The  treatise  was  commenced 
in  the  initial  number,  May  15,  1865,  as  an  indication  of  the 
literary  standards  which  the  new  periodical  was  to  represent. 
Chapters  II  and  III  appeared  in  the  numbers  for  July  i  and 
July  15,  respectively,  of  that  year.  Chapters  IV,  V,  and  VI 
followed  on  August  i,  September  15,  and  November  i. 
The  separate  articles  were  collected  in  1885  by  Professor 
Albert  S.  Cook  in  a  pamphlet  that  is  now  out  of  print.  Pro- 
fessor F.  N.  Scott  rendered  the  treatise  accessible  again 
in  convenient  form  by  his  painstaking  edition  of  1891 
(Boston,  Allyn  &  Bacon,  second  edition,  1892),  in  which 
many  typographical  and  other  slips  of  the  Fortnightly 
are  corrected.  To  the  accuracy  of  Professor  Scott's  second 
edition  the  text  of  the  two  chapters  here  presented  is  greatly 
indebted,  aiming  to  improve  thereon  only  in  one  or  two 
minor  points,  such  as  uniformity  in  spelling  the  name  De 
Qulncey. 

The  latter  three  chapters  of  Lcwcs's  Principles  oj  Success 
are  concerned  with  the  outer  and  secondary  requisites  of  ex- 
pression rather  than  the  inner  and  primary  requisites  of  native 
endowment  in  the  writer;  that  is,  so  far  as  manner  can  be 
treated  separately  from  matter,  they  have  to  do  with  questions 
of  style  rather  than  questions  of  substance  and  conception. 
This  is  notably  true  of  the  last  two  chapters,  of  which  the  fifth, 
on  The  Principle  of  Beauty,  is  preliminary  to  the  sixth,  on  The 
Laws  oj  Style.  Taken  together,  these  two  sections  form  a  unit 
of  inspiring  doctrine  that  llnds  its  ])lace  naturally  in  a  col- 
lection like  the  present.  All  six  chapters  are,  indeed,  salutary 
fca  ling  for  the  undeveloped  writer. 


LE  WES  .  313 

The  first  editor  of  the  Fortnightly  pronounced  his  name 
Lewis.  In  Professor  Scott's  edition,  noted  above,  there  is 
a  good  sketch  of  Lewes's  Hfe,  supplemented  by  numerous 
critical  references.] 

Chapter  V 

The  Principle  of  Beauty 

It  is  not  enough  that  a  man  have  clearness  of  Vision,  and 
reUance  on  Sincerity ;  he  must  also  have  the  art  of  Expression, 
or  he  will  remain  obscure.    Many  have  had 

"  The  visionary  eye,  the  faculty  to  see 
The  thing  that  hath  been  as  the  thing  which  is," 

but  either  from  native  defect,  or  the  mJstaken  bias  of  education, 
have  been  frustrated  in  the  attempt  to  give  their  visions  beauti- 
ful or  intelligible  shape.  The  art  which  could  give  them  shape 
is  doubtless  intimately  dependent  on  clearness  of  eye  and  sin- 
cerity of  purpose,  but  it  is  also  something  over  and  above  these, 
and  comes  from  an  organic  aptitude  not  less  special,  when 
possessed  with  fulness,  than  the  aptitude  for  music  or  drawing. 
Any  instructed  person  can  write,  as  any  one  can  leam  to  draw ; 
but  to  write  well,  to  express  ideas  with  felicity  and  force,  is  not 
an  accomplishment  but  a  talent.  The  power  of  seizing  un- 
apparent  relations  of  things  is  not  always  conjoined  with  the 
power  of  selecting  the  fittest  verbal  symbols  by  which  they 
can  be  made  apparent  to  others:  the  one  is  the  power  of  the 
thinker,  the  other  the  power  of  the  writer. 

"  Style,"  says  De  Quincey,  "  has  two  separate  functions 
—  first,  to  brighten  the  intelligibility  of  a  subject  which  is 
obscure  to  the  understanding;  secondly,  to  regenerate  the 
normal  power  and  impressiveness  of  a  subject  which  has 
become  dormant  to  the  sensibilities.  .  .  .  Decaying  hnea- 
ments  are  to  be  retraced,  and  faded  coloring  to  be  refreshed."  * 
To  effect  these  purposes  we  require  a  rich  verbal  memory 


314  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

from  which  to  select  the  symbols  best  fitted  to  call  up  images 
in  the  reader's  mind,  and  we  also  require  the  dehcate  selective 
instinct  to  guide  us  in  the  choice  and  arrangement  of  those 
symbols,  so  that  the  rhythm  and  cadence  may  agreeably  attune 
the  mind,  rendering  it  receptive  to  the  impressions  meant  to 
be  communicated.  A  copious  verbal  memory,  hke  a  copious 
memory  of  facts,  is  only  one  source  of  power,  and  without  the 
high  controlling  faculty  of  the  artist  may  lead  to  diffusive 
indecision.  Just  as  one  man,  gifted  with  keen  insight,  will 
from  a  small  stock  of  facts  extricate  unapparent  relations  to 
which  others,  rich  in  knowledge,  have  been  bhnd;  so  will 
a  writer,  gifted  with  a  fine  instinct,  select  from  a  narrow  range 
of  phrases  symbols  of  beauty  and  of  power  utterly  beyond 
the  reach  of  commonplace  minds.  It  is  often  considered, 
both  by  writers  and  readers,  that  fine  language  makes  fine 
writers;  yet  no  one  supposes  that  fine  colors  make  a  fine 
painter.  The  copia  verhorum  is  often  a  weakness  and  a  snare. 
As  Arthur  Helps  says,  men  use  several  epithets  in  the  hope  that 
one  of  them  may  fit.  But  the  artist  knows  which  epithet 
does  fit,  uses  that,  and  rejects  the  rest.  The  characteristic 
weakness  of  bad  writers  is  inaccuracy:  their  symbols  do  not 
adequately  express  their  ideas.  Pause  but  for  a  moment 
over  their  sentences,  and  you  perceive  that  they  are  using 
language  at  random,  the  choice  being  guided  rather  by  some 
indistinct  association  of  phrases,  or  some  broken  echoes  of 
familiar  sounds,  than  by  any  selection  of  words  to  represent 
ideas.  I  read  the  other  day  of  the  truck  system  being  "  ram- 
pant" in  a  certain  district;  and  every  day  we  may  meet  with 
similar  echoes  of  familiar  words  which  betray  the  flaccid  con- 
dition of  the  writer's  mind  drooping  under  the  labor  of 
expression. 

Except  in  the  rare  cases  of  great  dynamic  thinkers  whose 
thoughts  are  as  turning-points  in  the  history  of  our  race,  it  is 


LFAVES  315 

by  Style  that  writers  gain  distinction,  by  Style  they  secure  their 
immortality.^  In  a  lower  sphere  many  are  remarked  as 
writers  although  they  may  lay  no  claim  to  distinction  as 
thinkers,  if  they  have  the  faculty  of  felicitously  expressing 
the  ideas  of  others;  and  many  who  are  really  remarkable 
as  thinkers  gain  but  slight  recognition  from  the  public,  simply 
because  in  them  the  faculty  of  expression  is  feeble.  In  pro- 
portion as  the  work  passes  from  the  sphere  of  passionless 
intelligence  to  that  of  impassioned  intelligence,  from  the 
region  of  demonstration  to  the  region  of  emotion,  the  art  of 
Style  becomes  more  complex,  its  necessity  more  imperious. 
But  even  in  Philosophy  and  Science  the  art  is  both  subtle 
and  necessary;  the  choice  and  arrangement  of  the  fitting 
symbols,  though  less  difficult  than  in  Art,  is  quite  in- 
dispensable to  success.  If  the  distinction  which  I  formerly 
drew  between  the  Scientific  and  the  Artistic  tendencies  be 
accepted,  it  will  disclose  a  corresponding  difference  in  the 
Style  which  suits  a  ratiocinative  exposition  fixing  attention  on 
abstract  relations,  and  an  emotive  exposition  fixing  attention 
on  objects  as  related  to  the  feelings.  We  do  not  expect  the 
scientific  writer  to  stir  our  emotions,  otherwise  than  by  the 
secondary  influences  which  arise  from  our  awe  and  delight 
at  the  unveiling  of  new  truths  In  his  own  researches  he 
should  extricate  himself  from  the  perturbing  influences  of 
emotion,  and  consequently  he  should  protect  us  from  such 
suggestions  in  his  exposition.  Feeling  too  often  smites  in- 
tellect with  blindness,  and  intellect  too  often  paralyzes  the 
free  play  of  emotion,  not  to  call  for  a  decisive  separation  of  the 
two.  But  this  separation  is  no  ground  for  the  disregard  of 
Style  in  works  of  pure  demonstration  — ■  as  we  shall  see  by 
and  by. 

The  Principle  of  Beautvjs  only  ap'^tlipr  name  fnr  Styl^j, 
which'is  an  art,  incommunicable  as  are  all  other  arts,  but  like 


y 


316  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

thein  subordinated  to  laws  founded  on.  psychological  con- 
ditions; The  laws  constitute  the  Philosophy  of  Criticism; 
-^nd  I  shall  iiave^to'asFlKe  reader's  indulgence  if  for  the  first 
time  I  attempt  to  expound  them  scientifically  in  the  chapter 
to  which  the  present  is  only  an  introduction.  A  knowledge 
of  these  laws,  even  presuming  them  to  be  accurately  ex- 
pounded, will  no  more  give  a  writer  the  power  of  felicitous 
expression  than  a  knowledge  of  the  laws  of  color,  perspec- 
tive, and  proportion  will  enable  a  critic  to  paint  a  picture. 
But  all  good  writing  must  conform  to  these  laws;  all  bad 
writing  will  be  found  to  violate  them.  And  the  utility  of  the 
knowledge  will  be  that  of  a  constant  monitor,  warning  the 
artist  of  the  errors  into  which  he  has  slipped,  or  into  which  he 
may  slip  if  unwarned. 

How  is  it  that  while  every  one  acknowledges  the  im- 
portance of  Style,  and  numerous  critics  from  Quintilian  and 
Longinus  down  to  Quarterly  Reviewers  have  written  upon 
it,  very  little  has  been  done  towards  a  satisfactory  establish- 
ment of  principles  ?  Is  it  not  partly_because  the  critics  have 
seldom  held  the  true  purpose  of  Style  steadily  before  their  eyes, 
and--9tillr''§eidomer7n5tM€d-#ieir— can^^  by  deducing  them 
froi^^psycHoiogical  conditions?  To  my  apprehension  they 
seem  to  have  mistaken  the  real  sources  of  influence,  and  have 
fastened  attention  upon  some  accidental  or  collateral  details, 
instead  of  tracing  the  direct  connection  between  effects  and 
causes.  Misled  by  the  splendor  of  some  great  renown  they 
have  concluded  that  to  write  like  Cicero  or  to  paint  like 
Titian  must  be  the  pathway  to  success ;  which  is  true  in  one 
sense,  and  profoundly  false  as  they  understand  it.  One 
pestilent  contagious  error  issued  from  this  misconception, 
namely,  that  all  maxims  confirmed  by  the  practice  of  the 
great  artists  must  be  maxims  for  the  art;  although  a  close 
examination  might  reveal  that  the  practice  of  these  artists  may 


LEWES  317 

have  been  the  result  of  their  peculiar  individualities  or  of  the 
state  of  culture  at  their  epoch.  A  tEue  Philosophy  of  Crili-  cai^"' 
cism  would  exhibit  in  how  far  such  maxims  were  universal,  as  -^t^  v' 
founded  on  laws  of  human  nature,  and  in  how  far  adaptations  ^^  ^^ 
to  particular  individualities.  A  great  talent  will  discover 
new  methods.  A  great  success  ought  to  put  us  on  the  track 
of  new  principles.  But  the  fundamental  laws  of  Style,  rest- 
ing on  the  truths  of  human  nature,  may  be  illustrated,  they 
cannot  be  guaranteed  by  any  individual  success.  Moreover, 
the  strong  individuality  of  the  artist  will  create  special  modi- 
fications of  the  laws  to  suit  himself,  making  that  excellent  or 
endurable  which  in  other  hands  would  be  intolerable.  If  the 
purpose  of  Literature  be  the  sincere  expression  of  the  in- 
dividual's own  ideas  and  feelings  it  is  obvious  that  the  cant 
about  the  "  best  models  "  tends  to  pervert  and  obstruct  that 
expression.  Unless  a  man  thinks  and  feels  precisely  after  the 
manner  of  Cicero  and  Titian  it  is  manifestly  wrong  for  him  to 
express  himself  in  their  way.  He  may  study  in  them  the 
principles  of  effect,  and  try  to  surprise  some  of  their  secrets, 
but  he  should  resolutely  shun  all  imitation  of  them.  They 
ought  to  be  illustrations  not  authorities,  studies  not  models. 
The  fallacy  about  models  is  seen  at  once  if  we  ask  this 
simple  question :  Will  the  practice  of  a  great  writer  justify  a 
solecism  in  grammar  or  a  confusion  in  logic?  No.  Then 
why  should  it  Justify  any  other  detail  not  to  be~reconciled 
with  univei^  tniih^  If  we  are  forced  to  invoke  the  arbi- 
tration~~T3f~Teason  in  the  one  case,  we  must  do  so  in  the 
other^.  Unless  we  set  aside  the  individual  practice  when- 
ever it  is  irreconcilable  with  general  principles,  we  shall  be 
unable  to  discriminate  in  a  successful  work  those  merits 
which  secured  from  those  demerits  which  accompanied  suc- 
cess. Now  this  is  precisely  the  condition  in  which  Criticism 
has  always  been.     It  has  been  formal  instead  of  being  psy- 


3l8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

chological:  it  has  drawn  its  maxims  from  the  works  of  suc- 
cessful  artists,  instead— of-- ascertaining  the  psychological 
pTinciples' involved  in  the  effects  of  "those  works.  When 
the  perplexed  dramatist  called  down  curses  on  the  man  who 
invented  fifth  acts,  he  never  thought  of  escaping  from  his 
tribulation  by  writing  a  play  in  four  acts;  the  formal  canon 
which  made  five  acts  indispensable  to  a  tragedy  was  drawn 
from  the  practice  of  great  dramatists,  but  there  was  no 
demonstration  of  any  psychological  demand  on  the  part  of 
the  audience  for  precisely  five  acts.* 

Although  no  instructed  mind  will  for  a  moment  doubt  the 
immense  advantage  of  the  stimulus  and  culture  derived  from 
a  reverent  familiarity  with  the  works  of  our  great  predeces- 
sors and  contemporaries,  there  is  a  pernicious  error  which  has 
been  fostered  by  many  instructed  minds,  rising  out  of  their 
reverence  for  greatness  and  their  forgetfulness  of  the  ends  of 
Literature.  This  error  is  the  notion  of  "  models,"  and  of 
fixed  canons  drawn  from  the  practice  of  great  artists.  It 
substitutes  Imitation  for  Invention;  reproduction  of  old 
types  instead  of  the  creation  of  new.  There  is  more  bad  than 
good  work  produced  in  consequence  of  the  assiduous  following 
of  models.  And  we  shall  seldom  be  very  wide  of  the  mark  if 
in  our  estimation  of  youthful  productions  we  place  more 
reliance  on  their  departures  from  what  has  been  already  done, 
than  on  their  resemblances  to  the  best  artists.  An  energetic 
crudity,  even  a  riotous  absurdity,  has  more  promise  in  it  than 
a  clever  and  elegant  mediocrity,  because  it  shows  that  the 
young  man  is  speaking  out  of  his  own  heart,  and  struggling 

*  English  critics  are  much  less  pedantic  in  adherence  to  "rules"  than  the 
French,  yet  when,  many  years  ago,  there  appeared  a  tragedy  in  three  acts, 
and  without  a  death,  these  innovations  were  considered  inadmissible ;  and 
if  the  success  of  the  work  had  been  such  as  to  elicit  critical  discussion,  the 
necessity  of  five  acts  and  a  death  would  doubtless  have  been  generally  in- 
sisted on. 


LEWES  319 

to  express  himself  in  his  own  way  rather  than  in  the  way  he 
finds  in  other  men's  books.  The  early  works  of  original 
writers  arc  usually  very  bad;  then  succeeds  a  short  interval 
of  imitation  in  which  the  influence  of  some  favorite  author 
is  distinctly  traceable;  but  this  does  not  last  long :  the  native 
independence  of  the  mind  reasserts  itself,  and  although  per- 
haps academic  and  critical  demands  are  somewhat  disre- 
garded, so  that  the  original  writer  on  account  of  his  very 
originality  receives  but  slight  recognition  from  the  authori- 
ties, nevertheless  if  there  is  any  real  power  in  the  voice  it 
soon  makes  itself  felt  in  the  world.  There  is  one  word  of 
counsel  I  would  give  to  young  authors,  which  is  that  they 
should  be  humbly  obedient  to  the  truth  proclaimed  by  their 
own  souls,  and  haughtily  indifferent  to  the  remonstrances 
of  critics  founded  solely  on  any  departure  from  the  truths 
expressed  by  others.  It  by  no  means  follows  that  because 
a  work  is  unlike  works  that  have  gone  before  it,  therefore 
it  is  excellent  or  even  tolerable;  it  may  be  original  in  error 
or  in  ugliness ;  but  one  thing  is  certain,  that  in  proportion 
to  its  close  fidelity  to  the  matter  and  manner  of  existing 
works  will  be  its  intrinsic  worthlessness.  And  one  of  the 
severest  assaults  on  the  fortitude  of  an  unacknowledged  writer 
comes  from  the  knowledge  that  his  critics,  with  rare  excep- 
tions, will  judge-ilis  work  in  reference  to  ^reexisting^bdels, 
and  not  in  4:eference  to  the  ends  of  Literature  and  the  laws  of 
human  nature.  He  knows  that  he  will  be  compared  with 
artists  whom  he  ought  not  to  resemble  if  his  work  have  truth 
and  originality;  and  finds  himself  teased  with  disparaging 
remarks  which  are  really  compliments  in  their  objections.  He 
can  comfort  himself  by  his  trust  in  truth  and  the  sincerity  of 
his  own  work.  He  may  also  draw  strength  from  the  reflec- 
tion that  the  public  and  posterity  may  cordially  appreciate 
the  work  in  which  constituted  authorities  see  nothing  but 


320  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

failure.  The  history  of  Literature  abounds  in  examples  of 
critics  being  entirely  at  fault;  —  missing  the  old  familiar  land- 
marks, these  guides  at  once  set  up  a  shout  of  warning  that  the 
path  has  been  missed. 

Very  noticeable  is  the  fact  that  of  the  thousands  who  have 
devoted  years  to  the  study  of  the  classics,  especially  to  the 
"  niceties  of  phrase  "  and  "  chastity  of  composition,"  so  much 
prized  in  these  classics,  very  few  have  learned  to  write  with 
felicity,  and  not  many  with  accuracy.  Native  incompetence 
has  doubtless  largely  influenced  this  result  in  men  who  are  in- 
sensible to  the  nicer  shades  of  distinction  in  terms,  and  want 
the  subtle  sense  of  congruity;  but  the  false  plan  of  studying 
"  models  "  without  clearly  understanding  the  psychological 
conditions  which  the  effects  involve,  without  seeing  why  great 
writing  is  effective  and  where  it  is  merely  individual  expres- 
sion, has  injured  even  vigorous  minds  and  paralyzed  the  weak. 
From  a  similar  mistake  hundreds  have  deceived  themselves 
in  trying  to  catch  the  trick  of  phrase  peculiar  to  some  dis- 
tinguished contemporary.  In  vain  do  they  imitate  the  Latin- 
isms  and  antitheses  of  Johnson,  the  epigrammatic  sentences 
of  Macaulay,  the  colloquial  ease  of  Thackeray,  the  cumulative 
pomp  of  Milton,  the  diffusive  play  of  De  Quincey:  a  few 
friendly  or  ignorant  reviewers  may  applaud  it  as  "  brilliant 
writing,"  but  the  public  remains  unmoved.  It  is  imitation, 
rand  as  such  it  is  lifeless. 

e  see  at  once  the  mistake  directly  we  understand  that  a 
uilie  style  is  the  living  body  of  thought,  not  a  costume  that 
tjF^t  on  and  off;  it  is  the  expression  of  the  writer's  mind; 
It  is  not  less  the  incarnation  of  his  thoughts  in  verbal  symbols 
than  a  picture  is  the  painter's  incarnation  of  his  thoughts  in 
symbols  of  form  and  color.^  A  man  may,  if  it  please  him, 
dress  his  thoughts  in  the  tawdry  splendor  of  a  masquerade. 
But  this  is  no  more  Literature  than  the  masquerade  is  Life. 


LEWES  321 

No  Style  can  be  good  that  is  not  sincere.  It  must  be  the  U  _f-<; 
expression  of  its  author's  mind.  There-ftrepof  course,  certain 
elements  of  composition  which  must  be  mastered  as  a  dancer 
learns  his  steps,  but  the  style  of  the  writer,  like  the  grace  of  the 
dancer,  is  only  made  elTective  by  such  mastery;  it  springs 
from  a  deeper  source.  Initiation  into  the  rules  of  construc- 
tion will  save  us  from  some  gross  errors  of  composition,  but  it 
will  not  make  a  style.  Still  less  will  imitation  of  another's 
manner  make  one.  In  our  day  there  are  many  who  imi- 
tate Macaulay's  short  sentences,  iterations,  antitheses,  geo- 
graphical and  historical  illustrations,  and  eighteenth-century 
diction,  but  who  accepts  them  as  Macaulays  ?  *  They  can- 
not seize  the  secret  of  his  charm,  because  that  charm  lies  in 
the  felicity  of  his  talent,  not  in  the  structure  of  his  sentences; 
in  the  fulness  of  his  knowledge,  not  in  the  character  of  h^'^ 
illustrations.  Other  men  aim  at  ease  and  vigor  by  discard-  ^ 
ing  Latinisms,  and  admitting  colloquialisms;  but  vigor  and  I 
ease  are  not  to  be  had  on  recipe.  No  study  of  models,  no  / 
attention  to  rules,  will  give  the  easy  turn,  the  graceful  phrase, 
the  simple  word,  the  fervid  movement,  or  the  large  clearness; 
a  picturesque  talent  will  express  itself  in  concrete  images;  I 
a  genial  nature  will  smile  in  pleasant  turns  and  innuendoes;  \ 
a  rapid,  unhesitating,  imperious  mind  will  deliver  its  quick  \ 
incisive  phrases;  a  full,  deliberating  mind  will  overflow  iR:Jiv 
ample  paragraphs  laden  with  the  weight  of  parentheses  and 
qualifying.^uggestions.  The  style  whiciuis-good  in  one  case 
would  be^  vicious  in  another.  The  broken  rhythm  which 
increases  the  energy  of  one  style  would  ruin  the  lar^o  of  1 
another.     Both  are  excellencies  where  both  are  natural.  j_^ 

We  are  always  disagreeably  impressed  by  an  obvious 
imitation  of  the  manner  of  another,  because  we  feel  it  to  be 
an  insincerity,  and  also  because  it  withdraws  our  attention 
from  the  thing  said,  to  the  way  of  saying  it.     And  here  lies  the 


322  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

great  lesson  writers  have  to  learn  —  namely,  that  they  should 
think  of  the  immediate  purpose  of  their  writing,  which  is  to 
convey  truths  and  emotions,  in  symbols  and  images,  intelH- 
gible  and  suggestive.  The  racket-player  keeps  his  eye  on  the 
ball  he  is  to  strike,  not  on  the  racket  with  which  he  strikes. 
If  the  writer  sees  vividly,  and  will  say  honestly  what  he  sees, 
and  how  he  sees  it,  he  may  want  something  of  the  grace  and 
felicity  of  other  men,  but  he  will  have  all  the  strength  and 
felicity  with  which  nature  has  endowed  him.  More  than  that 
he  cannot  attain,  and  he  will  fall  very  short  of  it  in  snatching 
at  the  grace  which  is  another's.  Do  what  he  will,  he  cannot 
escape  from  the  infirmities  of  his  own  mind:  the  affectation, 
arrogance,  ostentation,  hesitation,  native  in  the  man  will  taint 
his  style,  no  matter  how  closely  he  may  copy  the  manner  of 
another.  For  evil  and  for  good,  le  style  est  de  Vhomme 
meme.^ 

The  French  critics,  who  are  singularly  servile  to  all  es- 
tablished reputations,  and  whose  unreasoning  idolatry  of 
their  own  classics  is  one  of  the  reasons  why  their  Literature 
is  not  richer,  are  fond  of  declaring  with  magisterial  empha- 
sis that  the  rules  of  good  taste  and  the  canons  of  style  were 
fixed  once  and  forever  by  their  great  writers  in  the  seventeenth 
century.  The  true  ambition  of  every  modem  is  said  to  be  by 
careful  study  of  these  models  to  approach  (though  with  no 
c)  >.  hope  of  equalling)  their  chastity  and  elegance.  That  a 
f^  ^  I  writer  of  the  nineteenth  century  should  express  himself  in  the 
manner  which  was  admirable  in  the  seventeenth  is  an 
absurdity  which  needs  only  to  be  stated.  It  is  not  worth 
refuting.  But  it  never  presents  itself  thus  to  the  French.  In 
their  minds  it  is  a  lingering  remnant  of  that  older  superstition 
which  believed  the  Ancients  to  have  discovered  all  wisdom, 
so  that  if  we  could  only  surprise  the  secret  of  Aristotle's 
thoughts  and  clearly  comprehend  the  drift  of  Plato's  theories 


LEWES 


323 


(which  unhappily  was  not  clear)  we  should  compass  all 
knowledge.  How  long  this  superstition  lasted  cannot  accu- 
rately be  settled;  perhaps  it  is  not  quite  extinct  even  yet;  but 
we  know  how  httle  the  most  earnest  students  succeeded  in  sur- 
prising the  secrets  of  the  universe  by  reading  Greek  treatises, 
and  how  much  by  studying  the  universe  itself.  Advancing 
Science  daily  discredits  the  superstition;  yet  the  advance  of 
Criticism  has  not  yet  wholly  discredited  the  parallel  supersti- 
tion in  Art.  The  earliest  thinkers  are  no  longer  considered 
the  wisest,  but  the  earhest  artists  are  still  proclaimed  the 
finest.  Even  those  who  do  not  believe  in  this  superiority  are, 
for  the  most  part,  overawed  by  tradition  and  dare  not  openly 
question  the  supremacy  of  works  which  in  their  private  con- 
victions hold  a  very  subordinate  rank.  And  this  reserve  is 
encouraged  by  the  intemperate  scorn  of  those  who  question 
the  supremacy  without  having  the  knowledge  or  the  sym- 
pathy which  could  fairly  appreciate  the  earlier  artists.  At- 
tacks on  the  classics  by  men  ignorant  of  the  classical  languages 
tend  to  perpetuate  the  superstition. 

But  be  the  merit  of  the  classics,  ancient  and  modem,  what 
it  may,  no  writer  can  become  a  classic  by  imitating  them. 
The  principle  of  Sincerity  here  ministers  to  the  principle  of 
Beauty  by  forbidding  imitation  and  enforcing  rivalry.  Write 
what  you  can,  and  if  you  have  the  grace  of  felicitous  expression 
or  the  power  of  energetic  expression  your  style  will  be  ad- 
mirable and  admired.  At  any  rate  see  that  it  be  your  own, 
and  not  another's;  on  no  other  terms  will  the  world  listen  to 
it.  You  cannot  be  eloquent  by  borrowing  from  the  opulence 
of  another;  you  cannot  be  humorous  by  mimicking  the  whims 
of  another;  what  was  a  pleasant  smile  dimpling  his  features 
becomes  a  grimace  on  yours. 

It  will  not  be  supposed  that  I  would  have  the  great  writers 
disregarded,  as  if  nothing  were  to  be  learned  from  them;  but 


324  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

the  study  of  great  writers  should  be  the  study  of  general 
principles  as  illustrated  or  revealed  in  these  writers;  and  if 
properly  pursued  it  will  of  itself  lead  to  a  condemnation  of  the 
notion  of  models.  What  we  may  learn  from  them  is  a  nice 
discrimination  of  the  symbols  which  intelligibly  express  the 
shades  of  meaning  and  kindle  emotion.  The  writer  wishes  to 
rive  his  thoughts  a  literary  form.  jTKis  is  for  others,  not  for 
himself;  consequently  he  must,  before  all  things,  desire  to  be 
intelligible,  and  to  be  so  he  must  adapt  his  expressions  to  the 
mental  condition  of  his  audience.  If  he  employs  arbitrary 
symbols,  such  as  old  words  in  new  and  unexpected  senses,  he 
may  be  clear  as  daylight  to  himself,  but  to  others,  dark  as  fog. 
And  the  difficulty  of  original  writing  lies  in  this,  that  what  is 
new  and  individual  must  iind  expression  in  old  symbols.  This 
difficulty  can  only  be  mastered  by  a  peculiar  talent,  strength- 
ened and  rendered  nimble  by  practice,  and  the  commerce 
with  original  minds.  Great  writers  should  be  our  com- 
panions if  we  would  learn  to  write  greatly;  but  no  familiarity 
with  their  manner  will  supply  the  place  of  native  endowment. 
Writers  are  born,  no  less  than  poets,  and  like  poets,  they 
learn  to  make  their  native  gifts  effective.  Practice,  aiding 
their  vigilant  sensibility,  teaches  them,  perhaps  unconsciously, 
certain  methods  of  effective  presentation,  how  one  arrange- 
ment of  words  carries  with  it  more  power  than  another,  how 
familiar  and  concrete  expressions  are  demanded  in  one  place, 
and  in  another  place  abstract  expressions  unclogged  with 
disturbing  suggestions.  Every  author  thus  silently  amasses 
a  store  of  empirical  rules,  furnished  by  his  own  practice,  and 
confirmed  by  the  practice  of  others.  A  true  Philosophy  of 
Criticism  would  reduce  these  empirical  rules  to  science  by 
ranging  them  under  psychological  laws,  thus  demonstrating 
the  validity  of  the  rules,  not  in  virtue  of  their  having  been 
employed  by  Cicero  or  Addison,  by  Burke  or  Sydney  Smith, 


LEWES  325 

but  in  virtue  of  their  conformity  with  the  constancies  of 
human  nature. 

The  importance  of  Style  is  generally  unsuspected  by  philoso- 
phers and  men  of  science,  who  are  quite  aware  of  its  advantage 
in  all  departments  of  hdlcs  lettrcs;  and  if  you  allude  in  their 
presence  to  the  deplorably  defective  presentation  of  the  ideas  in 
some  work  distinguished  for  its  learning,  its  profundity,  or  its 
novelty,  it  is  probable  that  you  will  be  despised  as  a  frivolous 
setter  up  of  manner  over  matter,  a  light-minded  dilettante, 
unfitted  for  the  simple  austerities  of  science.  But  this  is 
itself  a  light-minded  contempt ;  a  deeper  insight  would  change 
the  tone,  and  help  to  remove  the  disgraceful  slovenliness  and 
feebleness  of  composition  which  deface  the  majority  of  grave 
works,  except  those  written  by  Frenchmen,  who  have  been 
taught  that  composition  is  an  art  and  that  no  writer  may 
neglect  it.  In  England  and  Germany,  men  who  will  spare 
no  labor  in  research,  grudge  all  labor  in  style;  a  morning  is 
cheerfully  devoted  to  verifying  a  quotation,  by  one  who  will 
not  spare  ten  minutes  to  reconstruct  a  clumsy  sentence;  a 
reference  is  sought  with  ardor,  an  appropriate  expression  in 
lieu  of  the  inexact  phrase  which  first  suggests  itself  does  not 
seem  worth  seeking.  What  are  we  to  say  to  a  man  who 
spends  a  quarter's  income  on  a  diamond  pin  which  he  sticks 
in  a  greasy  cravat?  a  man  who  calls  public  attention  on 
him,  and  appears  in  a  slovenly  undress?  Am  I  to  bestow 
applause  on  some  insignificant  parade  of  erudition,  and  with- 
hold blame  from  the  stupidities  of  style  which  surround  it? 

Had  there  been  a  clear  understanding  of  Style  as  the  living 
body  of  thought,  and -Rot  its  "  dress,"  which  might  be  more  or 
less  ornamental,  the  error  I  am  noticing  would  not  have  spread 
so  widely.  But,  naturally^  when  men  regarded  the  grace  of 
style  as  mere  grace  of  manner,  and  not  as  the  delicate  pre- 
cision giving  form  and  relief  to  matter  —  as  mere  ornament, 


326  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

stuck  on  to  arrest  incurious  eyes,  and  not  as  effective  expres- 
sion —  their  sense  of  the  deeper  value  of  matter  made  them 
despise  such  aid,  A  clearer  conception  would  have  rectified 
this  error.  The  matter  is  confluent  with  the  manner;  and 
only  through  the  style  can  thought  reach  the  reader's  mind.  If 
the  manner  is  involved,  awkward,  abrupt,  obscure,  the  reader 
will  either  be  oppressed  with  a  confused  sense  of  cumbrous 
material  which  awaits  an  artist  to  give  it  shape,  or  he  will  have 
the  labor  thrown  upon  him  of  extricating  the  material  and 
reshaping  it  in  his  own  mind. 

How  entirely  men  misconceive  the  relation  of  style  to 
thought  may  be  seen  in  the  replies  they  make  when  their 
writing  is  objected  to,  or  in  the  ludicrous  attempts  of  clumsy 
playfulness  and  tawdry  eloquence  when  they  wish  to  be  re- 
garded as  writers. 

"  Le  style  le  moins  noble  a  pourtant  sa  noblesse,"  ® 

and  the  principle  of  Sincerity,  not  less  than  the  suggestions 
of  taste,  will  preserve  the  integrity  of  each  style.  A  phi- 
losopher, an  investigator,  an  historian,  or  a  moralist,  so  far 
from  being  required  to  present  the  graces  of  a  wit,  an  essayist, 
a  pamphleteer,  or  a  novehst,  would  be  warned  off  such  ground 
by  the  necessity  of  expressing  himself  sincerely.  Pascal,  Biot, 
Buffon,  or  Laplace  are  examples  of  the  clearness  and  beauty 
with  which  ideas  may  be  presented  wearing  all  the  graces  of 
fine  literature,  and  losing  none  of  the  severity  of  science. 
Bacon,  also,  having  an  opulent  and  active  intellect,  sponta- 
neously expressed  himself  in  forms  of  various  excellence.  But 
what  a  pitiable  contrast  is  presented  by  Kant !  It  is  true  that 
Kant  having  a  much  narrower  range  of  sensibility  could  have 
no  such  ample  resource  of  expression,  and  he  was  wise  in  not 
attempting  to  rival  the  splendor  of  the  Novum  Organum; 
but  he  was  not  simply  unwise,  he  was  extremely  culpable  in 


LE  WES 


327 


sending  forth  his  thoughts  as  so  much  raw  material  which  the 
public  was  invited  to  put  into  shape  as  it  could.  Had  he  been 
aware  that  much  of  his  bad  writing  was  imperfect  thinking, 
and  always  imperfect  adaptation  of  means  to  ends,  he  might 
have  been  induced  to  recast  it  into  more  logical  and  more 
intelligible  sentences,  which  would  have  stimulated  the 
reader's  mind  as  much  as  they  now  oppress  it.  Nor  had 
Kant  the  excuse  of  a  subject  too  abstruse  for  clear  presenta- 
tion. The  examples  of  Descartes,  Spinoza,  Hobbes,  and 
Hume  are  enough  to  show  how  such  subjects  can  be  mas- 
tered, and  the  very  implication  of  writing  a  book  is  that  the 
writer  has  mastered  his  material  and  can  give  it  intelligible 
form. 

A  grave  treatise,  dealing  with  a  narrow  range  of  subjects 
or  moving  amid  severe  abstractions,  demands  a  gravity  and 
severity  of  style  which  is  dissimilar  to  that  demanded  by 
subjects  of  a  wider  scope  or  more  impassioned  impulse;  but 
abstract  philosophy  has  its  appropriate  elegance  no  less  than 
mathematics.  I  do  not  mean  that  each  subject  should 
necessarily  be  confined  to  one  special  mode  of  treatment,  in 
the  sense  which  was  understood  when  people  spoke  of  the 
"  dignity  of  history,"  and  so  forth.  The  style  must  express 
the  writer's  mind;  and  as  variously  constituted  minds  will  treat 
one  and  the  same  subject,  there  will  be  varieties  in  their  styles. 
If  a  severe  thinker  be  also  a  man  of  wit,  like  Bacon,  Hobbes, 
Pascal,  or  Galileo,  the  wit  will  flash  its  sudden  illuminations 
on  the  argument;  but  if  he  be  not  a  man  of  wit,  and  conde- 
scends to  jest  under  the  impression  that  by  jesting  he  is 
giving  an  airy  grace  to  his  argument,  we  resent  it  as  an  im- 
pertinence. 

I  have  throughout  used  Style  in  the  narrower  sense  of 
expression  rather  than  in  the  wi3er~s5nse  of  "  treatment  " 
which  is  sometimes  affixed  to  it.    The  mode  of  treating  a 


328  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

subject  is  also  no  doubt  the  writer's  or  the  artist's  way  of 
expressing  what  is  in  his  mind,  but  this  is  Style  in  the  more 
general  sense,  and  does  not  admit  of  being  reduced  to  laws 
apart  from  those  of  Vision  and  Sincerity.  A  man  neces- 
sarily sees  a  subject  in  a  particular  light  —  ideal  or  gro- 
tesque, familiar  or  fanciful,  tragic  or  humorous.  He  may 
wander  into  fairy-land,  or  move  amid  representative  abstrac- 
tions; he  may  follow  his  wayward  fancy  in  its  grotesque 
combinations,  or  he  may  settle  down  amid  the  homeliest 
details  of  daily  life.  But  having  chosen  he  must  be  true  to 
his  choice.  He  is  not  allowed  to  represent  fairy-land  as  if 
it  resembled  Walworth,  nor  to  paint  Walworth  in  the  colors 
of  Venice.  The  truth  of  consistency  must  be  preserved  in  his 
treatment,  truth  in  art  meaning  of  course  only  truth  within 
the  limits  of  the  art;  thus  the  painter  may  produce  the  utmost 
relief  he  can  by  means  of  light  and  shade,  but  is  peremptorily 
forbidden  to  use  actual  solidities  on  a  plane  surface.  He  must 
represent  gold  by  color,  not  by  sticking  gold  on  his  figures.* 
Our  applause  is  greatly  determined  by  our  sense  of  difficulty 
overcome,  and  to  stick  gold  on  a  picture  is  an  avoidance  of  the 
difficulty  of  painting  it. 

Truth  of  presentation  has  an  inexplicable  charm  for  us, 
and  throws  a  halo  round  even  ignoble  objects,  A  policeman 
idly  standing  at  the  comer  of  the  street,  ona  sow  Jazily sleep- 
ing against  the  sun,  are  not  in  nature  objects  to  excite  a  thrill 
-Aof  delight,  but  a  paintep-may,  by  the  cunning  of  his  art, 
'"^represent  them  so  as  to  delight  every  spectator.  The  same 
objects  represented  by  an  inferior  painter  will  move  only  a 
languid  interest;  by  a  still  more  inferior  painter  they  may  be 

*  This  was  done  with  naivete  by  the  early  painters,  and  is  really  very 
effective  in  the  pictures  of  Gentile  da  Fabriano  —  that  Paul  Veronese  of  the 
fifteenth  century  —  as  the  reader  will  confess  if  he  has  seen  the  "Adoration 
of  the  Magi,"  in  the  Florence  Academy;  but  it  could  not  be  tolerated  now. 


LEWES  329 

represented  so  as  to  please  none  but  the  most  uncultivated 
eye.  Each  spectator  is  charmed  in  proportion  to  his  recog- 
nition of  a  triumph  over  difficulty  which  is  measured  by  the 
degree  of  verisimilitude.  The  degrees  are  many.  In  the 
lowest  the  pictured  object  is  so  remote  from  the  reality  that  we 
simply  recognize  what  the  artist  meant  to  represent.  In  like 
manner  we  recognize  in  poor  novels  and  dramas  what  the 
authors  mean  to  be  characters,  rather  than  what  our  ex- 
perience of  life  suggests  as  characteristic. 

Not  only  do  we  apportion  our  applause  according  to  the 
degree  of  verisimilitude  attained,  but  also  according  to  the 
difficulty  each  involves.  It  is  a  higher  difficulty,  and  implies 
a  nobler  art,  to  represent  the  movement  and  complexity  of  life 
and  emotion  than  to  catch  the  fixed  lineaments  of  outward 
aspect.  To  paint  a  policeman  idly  lounging  at  the  street 
comer  with  such  verisimilitude^that  we  are  pleased  with  the 
representation,  admiring  the  solidity  of  the  figure,  the  texture 
of  the  clothes,  and  the  human  aspect  of  the  features,  is  so 
difficult  that  we  loudly  applaud  the  skill  which  enables  an 
artist  to  imitate"wEat  in  itself  is  uninteresting;  and  if  the 
imitation  be  carried  to  a  certain  degree  of  verisimilitude  the 
picture  may  be  of  -immense  value.  But  no  excellencejit  f^^ 
representation  can  make-this~iiigir  artr^  o  carry  it  mto  the 
region  of  hi^TarTT^anotlre?"  aiid-far  greater  difficulty  must  be 
overcome;  the  man  must  be  represented  under  the  strain  of 
great  emotion,  and  we  must  recognize  an  equal  truthfulness 
in  thesubtlelhdlcations^Df-great  mental  agitation,  the  fleeting 
characters  of  which  are  far  less  easy  to  observe  and  to  repro- 
duce, than  the  stationary  characters  of  form  and  costume. 
We  may  often  observe  how  the  novelist  or  dramatist  has 
tolerable  success  so  long  as  his  personages  are  quiet,  or  moved 
only  by  the  vulgar  motives  of  ordinary  life,  and  how  fatally 
uninteresting,  because  unreal,  these  very  personages  become 


330  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

as  soon  as  they  are  exhibited  under  the  stress  of  emotion: 
their  language  ceases  at  once  to  be  truthful,  and  becomes 
stagey;  their  conduct  is  no  longer  recognizable  as  that  of 
human  beings  such  as  we  have  known.  Here  we  note  a 
defect  of  treatment,  a  mingling  of  styles,  arising  partly  from 
defect  of  vision,  and  partly  from  an  imperfect  sincerity;  and 
success  in  art  will  always  be  found  dependent  on  integrity  of 
style.  The  Dutch  painters,  so  admirable  in  their  own  style, 
would  become  pitiable  on  quitting  it  for  a  higher.' 

But  I  need  not  enter  at  any  length  upon  this  subject  of 
treatment.  Obviously  a  work  must  have  charm  or  it  cannot 
succeed;  and  the  charm  will  depend  on  very  complex  con- 
ditions in  the  artist's  mind.  What  treatment  is  in  Art,  com- 
position is  in  Philosophy.  The  general  conception  of  the 
point  of  view,  and  the  skilful  distribution  of  the  masses,  so  as 
to  secure  the  due  preparation,  development,  and  culmination, 
without  wasteful  prodigality  or  confusing  want  of  symmetry, 
constitute  Composition,  which  is  to  the  structure  of  a  treatise 
what  Style  —  in  the  narrower  sense  —  is  to  the  structure  of 
sentences.  How  far  Style  is  reducible  to  law  will  be  examined 
in  the  next  chapter. 

Chapter  VI 

The  Laws  of  Style 

From  what  was  said  in  the  preceding  chapter,  the  reader 
will  understand  that  our  present  inquiry  is  only  into  the  laws 
which  regulate  the  mechanism  of  Style.  In  such  an  analysis  all 
that  constitutes  the  individuality,  the  life,  the  charm  of  a  great 
writer,  must  escape.  But  we  may  dissect  Style,  as  we 
dissect  an  organism,  and  lay  bare  the  fundamental  laws  by 
which  each  is  regulated.  And  this  analogy  may  indicate  the 
utility  of    our  attempt;    the  grace  and  luminousness  of  a 


LEWES  331 

happy  talent  will  no  more  be  acquired  by  a  knowledge  of  these 
laws,  than  the  force  and  elasticity  of  a  healthy  organism  will 
be  given  by  a  knowledge  of  anatomy;  but  the  mistakes  in 
Style,  and  the  diseases  of  the  organism,  may  be  often  avoided, 
and  sometimes  remedied,  by  such  knowledge. 

On  a  subject  like  this,  whjch  has  for  many  years  engaged 
the  researches  of  many  minds,  I  shall  hotbe  expected  to  bring 
forward  discoveries;  Jndeed,  novelty  would  not  unjustly  ber.^ 
suspectedrTsftallacy.  The  only  claim  my  exposition  can  hafej 
on  the  reader's  attention  is  that  of  being  an  attempt  to 
systematize  what  has  been  hitherto  either  empirical  observa- 
tion, or  the  establishment  of  critical  rules  on  a  false  basis. 
I  know  btrtTofoneexception  to  this  sweeping  censure,  and  that 
is  the  essay  on  the  Philosophy  0}  Style,  by  Mr.  Herbert 
Spencer,  where  for  the  first  time,  I  believe,  the  right  method 
was  puxgued-of  ..seeking...in_psychological-<;onditions  for  the 
true  laws  of  expression. , — -^.^^ 

The  aims  of  Literature  being  instruction  and  dehght,  Style 
must  in  varying  degrees  appeal  to  our  intellect  and  our  sen- 
sibilities :  sometimes  reaching  the  intellect  through  the  presen- 
tation of  simple  ideas,  and  at  others  through  the  agitating 
influence  of  emotions;  sometimes  awakening  the  sensibilities 
through  the  reflexes  of  ideas,  and  sometimes  through  a  direct 
appeal.  A  truth  may  be  nakedly  expressed  so  as  to  stir  the 
intellect  alone;  or  it  may  be  expressed  in  terms  which,  with- 
out disturbing  its  clearness,  may  appeal  to  our  sensibiHty  by 
their  harmony  or  energy.  It  is  not  possible  to  distinglfish^ 
the  combined  influences  of  clearness,  movement,  and  har- 
mony, so  as  to  assign  to  each  its  relative  effect ;  and  if  in  the 
ensuing  pages  one  law  is  isolated  from  another,  this  must  be 
understood  as  an  artifice  inevitable  in  such  investigations. 

There  are  five  laws  under  which  all  the  conditions  of  Style 
may  be  grouped:    i.  The  Law  of  Economy.     2.  The  Law 


332  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

of  Simplicity.      3.  The  Law  of  Sequence.     4.  The  Law  of 
Climax.     5.  The  Law  of  Variety. 

It  would  be  easy  to  reduce  these  five  to  three,  and  range  all 
considerations  under  Economy, Climax,  and  Variety;  or  we 
might  amphfy  the  divisions;  but  there  are  reasons  of  con- 
venience as  well  as  symmetry  which  give  a  preference  to  the 
five.  I  had  arranged  them  thus  for  convenience  some  years 
ago,  and  I  now  find  they  express  the  equivalence  of  the  two 
great  factors  of  Style  —  Intelligence  and  Sensibility.  Two 
out  of  the  five,  Economy  and  Simplicity,  more  specially  derive 
their  significance  from  intellectual  needs ;  another  two, 
Climax  and  Variety,  from  emotional  needs ;  and  between 
these  is  the  Law  of  Sequence,  which  is  intermediate  in  its 
nature,  and  may  be  claimed  with  equal  justice  by  both.  The 
laws  of  force  and  the  laws  of  pleasure  can  only  be  provisionally 
isolated  in  our  inquiry;  in  style  they  are  blended.  The  follow- 
ing brief  estimate  of  each  considers  it  as  an  isolated  principle 
undetermined  by  any  other. 

I.    The  Law  of  Economy 

Our  inquiry  is_scientific,  not  empirical;  it  therefore  seeks 
the  psychological  basis^toPevery  law,  endeavoring  to  ascer- 
tain what  condition  of  a  reader's  receptivity  determines  the 
law.  Fortunately  for  us,  in  the  case  of  the  first  and  most 
important  law  the  psychological  basis  is  extremely  simple, 
and  may  be  easily  appreciated  by  a  reference  to  its  analogue 
in  Mechanics.* 

What  is  the  first  object  of  a  machine?  Effective  work  — 
vis  viva.  Every  means  by  whtclTfriction  can  be  reduced,  and 
the  force  thus  economized  be  rendered  available,  necessarily 
solicits  the  constructor's  care.  He  seeks  as  far  as  possible 
to  liberate  the  motion  which  is  absorbed  in  the  working  of 


LEWES  333 

the  machine,  and  to  use  it  as  vis  viva.  He  knows  that  every 
superfluous  detail,  every  retarding  influence,  is  at  the  cost  of 
so  much  power,  and  is  a  mechanical  defect,  though  it  may 
perhaps  be  an  aesthetic  beauty  or  a  practical  convenience. 
He  may  retain  it  because  of  the  beauty,  because  of  the  con- 
venience, but  he  knows  the  price  of  effective  power  at  which 
it  is  obtained. 

And  thus_it  stands  with  Style.    The  first  object  of  a  writer 
is  effective  expression,  the  power  of  communicating  distinct 
thoughts  and  emotional  suggestions.     He  has  to  overcome 
the-  friction\of  ignorance  and  preoccupatiom      He  has  to 
aYT^^^^n^^^^Ap^nj^-rmi<ii\nr\ ^  anH  to  clear  away  the  miscon-     ,^^ 
ceptions  which  cling  around  verbal  symbols.     Words  are  not     ^t 
like   iron   and   wood7~coal~and   water,    invariable   in  their 
properties,  calculable  in  their  effects.    They  are  mutable  in 
their  powers,  deriving  force  and  subtle  variations  of  force 
from  very  trifling  changes  of  position;  coloring  and  colored 
by  the  words  which  precede  and  succeed;   significant  or  in- 
significant from  the  powers  of  rhythm  and  cadence.     It  is 
the  writer's  art  so  to  arrange  words  that  they  shall  suffer  the 
least  possible  retardation  from  the  inevitable  friction  of  the 
reader's  mind.    The  analoff^^-^l  a^  machine  js  perfect.     In       'i(v> 
both  cases  the  object  is  to  secure  the  maximum  of  disposable      ^^ 
force,  by  diminishing  the  amount  absorbed  in  the  working.  \>^/V^ 
Obviously,  if  a  reader  is  engaged  in  extricating  the  meaning     ^   ^  ^ 
from  a  sentence  which  ought  to  have  reflected  its  meaning  as 
in  a  mirror,  the  mental  energy  thus  employed  is  abstracted 
from  the  amount  of  force  which  he  has  to  bestow  on  the 
subject;   he  has  mentally  to  form  anew  the  sentence  which 
has  been  clumsily  formed  by  the  writer;  he  wastes,  on  inter- 
pretation of  the  symbols,  force  which  might  have  been  con- 
centrated on  meditation  of  the  propositions.    This  waste  is 
inappreciable  in  writing  of  ordinary  excellence,  and  on  sub- 


334  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

jectsnot  severely  tasking  to  the  attention;  but  if  inappreciable, 
it  is  always  waste ;  and  in  bad  writing,  especially  on  topics  of 
philosophy  and  science,  the  waste  is  important.  And  it  is 
this  which  greatly  narrows  the  circle  for  serious  works. 
Interest  in  the  subjects  treated  of  may  not  be  wanting;  but 
the  abundant  energy  is  wanting  which  to  the  fatigue  of  con- 
secutive thinking  will  add  the  labor  of  deciphering  the 
language.  Many  of  us  are  but  too  familiar  with  the  fatigue 
of  reconstructing  unwieldy  sentences  in  which  the  clauses 
are  not  logically  dependent,  nor  the  terms  free  from  equivoque ; 
we  know  what  it  is  to  have  to  hunt  for  the  meaning  hidden 
in  a  maze  of  words;  and  we  can  understand  the  yawning 
indifference  which  must  soon  settle  upon  every  reader  of 
such  writing,  unless  he  has  some  strong  external  impulse  or 
abundant  energy. 

Economy  dictates  that  the  meaning  should  be  presented  in 
a  form  which  claims  the  least  possible  attention  to  itself  as 
form,  unless  when  that  form  is  part  of  the  writer's  object, 
and^wllen  the  simple  tEbirght-4&-4es§nmportant  than  the 
manner  of  presenting  it.  And  even  when  the  manner  is 
playful  or  impassioned,  the  law  of  Economy  still  presides, 
and  insists  on  the  rejection  of  whatever  is  superfluous.  Only 
a  delicate  susceptibihty  can  discriminate  a  superfluity  in 
passages  of  humor  or  rhetoric ;  but  elsewhere  a  very  ordinary 
understanding  can  recognize  the  clauses  and  the  epithets 
which  are  out  of  place,  and  in  excess,  retarding  or  confusing 
the  direct  appreciation  of  the  thought.  If  we  have  written  a 
clumsy  or  confused  sentence,  we  shall  often  find  that  the  re- 
moval of  an  awkward  inversion  liberates  the  idea,  or  that  the 
modification  of  a  cadence  increases  the  effect.  This  is  some- 
times strikingly  seen  at  the  rehearsal  of  a  play:  a  passage 
which  has  fallen  flat  upon  the  ear  is  suddenly  brightened  into 
effectiveness  by  the  removal  of  a  superfluous  phrase,  which, 


LEWES  335 

by  its   retarding  influence,  had  thwarted  the  declamatory 
crescendo. 

Young  writers  may  learn  something  of  the  secrets  of 
Economy  by  careful  revision  of  their  own  compositions,  and 
by  careful  dissection  of  passages  selected  both  from  good 
and  bad  writers.  TheyJiave_simply  to  strike  out  every  wordl 
every  claus£^  and  every  sentence,  the  removal  of  which  will  ^ 
not  carry  away  any  of  the  constituent  elemenls-of  the  thought,  v 
Having-done  this,  let  them  compare  the  revised  with  the  un- 
revised  passages,  and  see  where  the  excision  has  improved, 
and  where  it  has  injured,  the  effect.  For  Economy,  although 
a  primal  law,  is  not  the  only  law  of  Style.  It  is  subject  to 
various  limitations  from  the  pressure  of  other  laws;  and  thus 
the  removal  of  a  trifling  superfluity  will  not  be  justified  by  a 
wise  economy  if  that  loss  entails  a  dissonance,  or  prevents  a 
climax,  or  robs  the  expression  of  its  ease  and  variety.  _  Econ- 
omy is  jejection  of  whatever  is  superfluous;  it  is  not  Miser- 
liness. A  liberal  expenditure  is  often  the  best  economy,  and 
is  always  so  when  dictated  by  a  generous  impulse,  not  by  a 
prodigal  carelessness  or  ostentatious  vanity.  That  man  would 
greatly  err  who  tried  to  make  his  style  effective  by  stripping 
it  of  all  redundancy  and  ornament,  presenting  it  naked  before 
the  indifferent  public.  P&rhaps  the  very  redundancy  which 
he  lops  away  might  have  aided  the  reader  to  see  the  thought 
more  clearly,  because  it  would  have  kept  the  thought  a  little 
longer  before  his  mind,  and  thus  prevented  him  from  hurry- 
ing on  to  the  next  while  this  one  was  still  imperfectly  con- 
ceived. 

As  a  general  rule,  redundancy  is  injurious;  and  the  reason 
of  the  rule  will  enable  us  to  discriminate  when  redundancy 
is  injurious  and  when  beneficial.  It_is_jnjurious  when  it 
hampers  the  rapid  movement  of  the  reader's  mind,  diverting 
his  attention  to  some  collateral  detail.     But  it  is  beneficial 


J^ 


336  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

when  its  ret9,rding  influence  is  such  as  only  to  detain  the 
mind  longer  on  the  thought,  and  thus  to  secure  the  fuller 
effect  of  the  thought.  For  rapid  reading  is  often  imperfect 
reading.  The  mind  is  satisfied  with  a  glimpse  of  that  which 
it  ought  to  have  steadily  contemplated;  and  any  artifice  by 
which  the  thought  can  be  kept  long  enough  before  the  mind, 
may  indeed  be  a  redundancy  as  regards  the  meaning,  but  is 
an  economy  of  power.  Thus  we  see  that  the  phrase  or  the 
clause  which  we  might  be  tempted  to  lop  away  because  it 
threw  no  light  upon  the  proposition,  would  be  retained  by  a 
skilful  writer  because  it  added  power.  You  may  know  the 
character  of  a  redundancy  by  this  one  test :  does  it  divert  the 
attention,  or  simply  retard  it  ?  The  former  is  always  a  loss 
of  power;  the  latter  is  sometimes  a  gain  of  power.  The  art 
of  the  writer  consists  in  rejecting  all  redundancies  that  do 
not  conduce  to  clearness.  The  shortest  sentences  are  not 
necessarily  the  clearest.  Concision  gives  energy,  but  it  also 
adds  restraint.  The  labor  of  expanding  a  terse  sentence  to 
its  full  meaning  is  often  greater  than  the  labor  of  picking 
out  the  meaning  from  a  diffuse  and  loitering  passage.  Taci- 
tus is  more  tiresome  than  Cicero. 

There  axeoccasions  when  the  simplest  and  fewest  words 
surpass  in  effect  all  the  wealth  of  rhetojrical  amplification. 
An  exarnple~~may-b€-seeiijn  thg^assage  which  has  been  a 
favorite  illustration  from  the  days  of  Longinus  ^  to  our  own. 
" God  said:  Let  there  be^light!  and therejwas" light."  This 
is  a  conception  of  power  so  calm  and  simple  that  it  needs 
only  to  be  presented  in  the  fewest  and  the  plainest  words, 
and  would  be  confused  or  weakened  by  any  suggestion  of 

^accessories.  Let  us  amplify  the  expression  in  the  redundant 
style  of  miscalled  eloquent  writers:  "  God,  in  the  magnificent 
fulness  of  creative  energy,  exclaimed :    Let  there  be  light ! 

1  and  lo !   the  agitating  fiat  immediately  went  forth,  and  thus 


LEWES  337 

in  one  indivisible  moment  the  whole  universe  was  illumined." 
We  have  here  a  sentence  which  I  am  certain  many  a  writer 
would,  in  secret,  prefer  to  the  masterly  plainness  of  Genesis. 
It  is  not  a  sentence  which  would  have  captivated  critics. 

Although  this  sentence  from  Genesis  is  sublime  in  its 
simplicity,  we  are  not  to  conclude  that  simple  sentences  are 
uniformly  the  best,  or  that  a  style  composed  of  propositions 
briefly  expressed  would  obey  a  wise  Economy.  The  reader's 
pleasure  must  not  be  forgotten;  and  he  cannot  be  pleased 
by  a  style  which  always  leaps  and  never  flows.  A  harsh, 
abrupt,  and  dislocated  manner  irritates  and  perplexes  "him 
by  its  sudden  jerks.  It  is  easier  to  write  short  sentences  than 
to  read  them.  An  easy,  fluent,  and  harmonious  phrase  steals 
unobtrusively ^Ipon  the  mind,  and  allows  the  thought  to  ex- 
pand quietly  Hke  an  opening  flower.^"  But  the  very  suasive- 
ness  of  harmonious  writing  needs  to  be  varied  lest  it  become 
a  drowsy  monotony;  and  the  sharp,  short  sentences  which 
are  intolerable  when  abundant,  when  used  sparingly  act  like 
a  trumpet-call  to  the  drooping  attention. 

II.    The  Law  of  Simplicity 

The  first  obligation  of  Economy  is  that  of  using  the  fewest 
words  to  secure  the  fullest  effect.  It  rejects  whatever  is 
superfluous;  but  the  question  of  superfluity  must,  as  I 
showed  just  now,  be  determined  in  each  individual  case  by 
various  conditions  too  complex  and  numerous  to  be  reduced 
within  a  formula.  The  same  may  be  said  of  Simplicity,  which 
is  indeed  so  intimately  allied  with  Economy  that  I  have  only 
given  it  a  separate  station  for  purposes  of  convenience.  The 
psychological  basis  is  the  same  for  both.  The  desire  for 
SimpHcity  is  impatience  at  superfluity,  and  the  impatience 
arises  from  a  sense  of  hindrance. 


338  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

The  first  obligation  of  Simplicity  is  that  of  using  the  sim- 
plest means  to  secure  the  fullest  effect.  But  although  the 
mind  instinctively  rejects  all  needless  complexity,  we  shall 
greatly  err  if  we  fail  to  recognize  the  fact,  that  what  the  mind 
recoils  from  is  not  the  complexity,  but  the  needlessness. 
When  two  men  are  set  to  the  work  of  one,  there  is  a  waste 
of  means;  when  two  phrases  are  used  to  express  one  mean- 
ing twice,  there  is  a  waste  of  power;  when  incidents  are  multi- 
plied and  illustrations  crowded  without  increase  of  illumina- 
tion, there  is  prodigality  which  only  the  vulgar  can  mistake 
for  opulence.  Simplicity  is  a  relative  term.  If  in  sketching 
the  head  of  a  man  the  artist  wishes  only  to  convey  the  general 
characteristics  of  that  head,  the  fewest  touches  show  the 
greatest  power,  selecting  as  they  do  only  those  details  which 
carry  with  them  characteristic  significance.  The  means  are 
simple,  as  the  effect  is  simple.  But  if,  besides  the  general 
characteristics,  he  wishes  to  convey  the  modelling  of  the  forms, 
the  play  of  light  and  shade,  the  textures,  and  the  very  complex 
effect  of  a  human  head,  he  must  use  more  complex  means. 
The  simphcity  which  was  adequate  in  the  one  case  becomes 
totally  inadequate  in  the  other. 

Obvious  as  this  is,  it  has  not  been  sufficiently  present  to 
the  mind  of  critics  who  have  called  for  plain,  familiar,  and 
concrete  diction,  as  if  that  alone  could  claim  to  be  simple; 
who  have  demanded  a  style  unadorned  by  the  artifices  of 
involution,  cadence,  imagery,  and  epigram,  as  if  Simplicity 
were  incompatible  with  these;  and  havepraised  meagreness, 
mistaking_it4orL_Sinvplifi;ity.  Saxon  ^rds  are^words-^ich 
in  their  homeliness  Jiaye  deep-se'atedTpower,  and  in  some 
places  they  are  the  simplest  because  the  most  powerful  words 
we  can  employ;  but  their  very  homeliness  excludes  them 
from  certain  places  where  their  very  power  of  suggestion  is  a 
disturbance  of  the  general  effect.    The  selective  instinct  of 


LEWES  339 

the  artist  tells  him  when  his  language  should  be  homely,  and 
when  it  should  be  more  elevated;  and  it  is  precisely  in  the 
imperceptible  blending.joi-the  plaia_sLith  the  ornate  that  a 
great  writer  is  distinguished.  He  uses  the  simplest  phrases 
without  triviahty,  and  the  grandest  without  a  suggestion  of 
grandiloquence. 

Simplicity  of  Style  will  therefore  be  understood  as  meaning 
absence  of  needless  superfluity: 

"  Without  o'erflowing  full."  » 

Its  plainness  is  never  meagreness,  but  unity.  Obedient  to 
the  primary  impulse  of  adequate  expression,  the  style  of  a 
complex  subject  should  be  complex;  of  a  technical  subject, 
technical;  of  an  abstract  subject,  abstract;  of  a  famihar  sub- 
ject, famihar;  of  a  pictorial  subject,  picturesque.  The  struc- 
ture of  the  "  Antigone  "  is  simple;  but  so  also  is  the  structure 
of  "Othello,"  though  it  contains  many  more  elements;  the 
simphcity  of  both  lies  in  their  fulness  without  superfluity. 

Whatever  is  outside  the  purpose,  or  the  feeling,  of  a  scene, 
a  speech,  a  sentence,  or  a  phrase,  whatever  may  be  omitted 
without  sacrifice  of  effect,  is  a  sin  against  this  law.  I  do  not 
say  that  the  incident,  description,  or  dialogue,  which  may  be 
omitted  without  injury  to  the  unity  of  the  work,  is  necessarily 
a  sin  against  art;  still  less  that,  even  when  acknowledged  as 
a  sin,  it  may  not  sometimes  be  condoned  by  its  success.  The 
law  of  Simphcity  is  not  the  only  law  of  art;  and,  moreover, 
audiences  are,  unhappily,  so  Httle  accustomed  to  judge  works 
a::  wholes,  and  so  ready  to  seize  upon  any  detail  which  pleases 
Aem,  no  matter  how  incongruously  the  detail  may  be  placed,* 
that  a  felicitous  fault  will  captivate  applause,  let  critics  shake 
reproving  heads  as  they  may.    Nevertheless  the  law  of  Sim- 

*  "  Was  hilft's,  wenn  ihr  ein  Ganzcs  dargebracht  ? 

Das  Publikum  wird  es  euch  doch  zerpfliicken."  —  Goethe. 


340  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

plicity  remains  unshaken,  and  ought  only  to  give  way  to  the 
pressure  of  the  law  of  Variety. 

The  drama  offers  a  good  opportunity  for  studying  the 
operation  of  this  law,  because  the  limitations  of  time  compel 
the  dramatist  to  attend  closely  to  what  is  and  what  is  not 
needful  for  his  purpose.  A  drama  must  compress  into  two 
or  three  hours  material  which  may  be  diffused  through  three 
volumes  of  a  novel,  because  spectators  are  more  impatient 
than  readers,  and  more  unequivocally  resent  by  their  signs 
of  weariness  any  disregard  of  economy,  which  in  the  novel 
may  be  skipped.  The  dramatist,  having  little  time  in  which 
to  evolve  his  story,  feels  that  every  scene  which  does  not 
forward  the  progress  of  the  action  or  intensify  the  interest 
in  the  characters  is  an  artistic  defect ;  though  in  itself  it  may 
be  charmingly  written,  and  may  excite  applause,  it  is  away 
from  his  immediate  purpose.  And  what  is  true  of  purpose- 
less scenes  and  characters  which  divert  the  current  of  progress, 
is  equally  true,  in  a  minor  degree,  of  speeches  and  sentences 
which  arrest  the  culminating  interest  by  calling  attention 
away  to  other  objects.  It  is  an  error  which  arises  from  a 
deficient  earnestness  on  the  writer's  part,  or  from  a  too  pHant 
facility.  The  dramatis  personcB  wander  in  their  dialogue, 
not  swayed  by  the  fluctuations  of  feeling,  but  by  the  author's 
desire  to  show  his  wit  and  wisdom,  or  else  by  his  want  of 
power  to  control  the  vagrant  suggestions  of  his  fancy.  The 
desire  for  display  and  the  inability  to  control  are  weaknesses 
that  lead  to  almost  every  transgression  of  Simplicity;  but 
sometimes  the  transgressions  are  made  in  more  or  less  con- 
scious obedience  to  the  law  of  Variety,  although  the  highest 
reach  of  art  is  to  secure  variety  by  an  opulent  simplicity. 

The  novelist  is  not  under  the  same  limitations  of  time,  nor 
has  he  to  contend  against  the  same  mental  impatience  on 
the  part  of  his  public.     He  may  therefore  linger  where  the 


LEWES  341 

dramatist  must  hurry;  he  may  digress,  and  gain  fresh  im- 
petus from  the  digression,  where  the  dramatist  would  seriously 
endanger  the  effect  of  his  scene  by  retarding  its  evolution. 
The  novelist  with  a  prudent  prodigality  may  employ  descrip- 
tions, dialogues,  and  episodes,  which  would  be  fatal  in  a 
drama.  Characters  may  be  introduced  and  dismissed  with- 
out having  any  important  connection  with  the  plot;  it  is 
enough  if  they  serve  the  purpose  of  the  chapter  in  which  they 
appear.  Although  as  a  matter  of  fine  art  no  character  should 
have  a  place  in  a  novel  unless  it  form  an  integral  element  of 
the  story,  and  no  episode  should  be  introduced  unless  it 
reflect  some  strong  light  on  the  characters  or  incidents,  this 
is  a  critical  demand  which  only  fine  artists  think  of  satisfying, 
and  only  delicate  tastes  appreciate.  For  the  mass  of  readers 
it  is  enough  if  they  are  amused;  and  indeed  all  readers,  no 
matter  how  critical  their  taste,  would  rather  be  pleased  by  a 
transgression  of  the  law  than  wearied  by  prescription.  De- 
light condones  offence.  The  only  question  for  the  writer  is, 
whether  the  offence  is  so  trivial  as  to  be  submerged  in  the 
delight.  And  he  will  do  well  to  remember  that  the  greater 
flexibility  belonging  to  the  novel  by  no  means  removes  the 
novel  from  the  laws  which  rule  the  drama.  The  parts  of  a 
novel  should  have  organic  relations.  Push  the  license  to 
excess,  and  stitch  together  a  volume  of  unrelated  chapters,  — 
a  patchwork  of  descriptions,  dialogues,  and  incidents,  —  no 
one  will  call  that  a  novel;  and  the  less  the  work  has  of  this 
unorganized  character  the  greater  will  be  its  value,  not  only 
in  the  eyes  of  critics,  but  in  its  effect  on  the  emotions  of  the 
reader. 

Simplicity  of  structure  means  organic  unity,  whether  the 
organism  be  simple  or  complex;  and  hence  in  all  times  the 
emphasis  which  critics  have  laid  upon  Simplicity,  though  they 
have  not  unfrequently  confounded  it  with  narrowness  of  range. 


342  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

In  like  manner,  as  we  said  just  now,  when  treating  of  diction 
they  have  overlooked  the  fact  that  the  simplest  must  be  that 
which  best  expresses  the  thought.  Simplicity  of  diction  is 
integrity  of  speech;  that  which  admits  of  least  equivocation, 
that  which  by  the  clearest  verbal  symbols  most  readily  calls 
up  in  the  reader's  mind  the  images  and  feelings  which  the 
writer  wishes  to  call  up.  Such  diction  may  be  concrete  or 
abstract,  familiar  or  technical;  its  simplicity  is  determined 
by  the  nature  of  the  thought.  We  shall  often  be  simpler  in 
using  abstract  and  technical  terms  than  in  using  concrete  and 
familiar  terms  which  by  their  very  concreteness  and  familiarity 
call  up  images  and  feelings  foreign  to  our  immediate  purpose. 
If  we  desire  the  attention  to  fall  upon  some  general  idea  we 
only  blur  its  outlines  by  using  words  that  call  up  particulars. 
Thus,  although  it  may  be  needful  to  give  some  definite  direc- 
tion to  the  reader's  thoughts  by  the  suggestion  of  a  particular 
fact,  we  must  be  careful  not  to  arrest  his  attention  on  the 
fact  itself,  still  less  to  divert  it  by  calling  up  vivid  images  of 
facts  unrelated  to  our  present  purpose.  For  example,  I  wish 
to  fix  in  the  reader's  mind  a  conception  of  a  lonely  meditative 
man  walking  on  the  seashore,  and  I  fall  into  the  vicious  style 
of  our  day  which  is  lauded  as  word-painting,  and  write  some- 
thing like  this:  — 

"The  fishermen  mending  their  storm-beaten  boats  upon 
the  shore  would  lay  down  the  hammer  to  gaze  after  him  as 
he  passed  abstractedly  before  their  huts,  his  hair  streaming 
in  the  salt  breeze,  his  feet  crushing  the  scattered  seaweed,  his 
eyes  dreamily  fixed  upon  the  purple  heights  of  the  precipitous 
crags." 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  the  details  here  assembled  are  mostly 
foreign  to  my  purpose,  which  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  fishermen,  storms,  boats,  seaweeds,  or  purple  crags ;  and 
by  calling  up  images  of  these  I  only  divert  the  attention  from 


LEWES  343 

my  thought.  Whereas,  if  it  had  been  my  purpose  to  picture 
the  scene  itself,  or  the  man's  dehght  in  it,  then  the  enumera- 
tion of  details  would  give  color  and  distinctness  to  the  picture. 
The  art  of  a  great  writer  is  seen  in  the  perfect  fitness  of  his 
expressions.  He  knows  how  to  blend  vividness  with  vague- 
ness, knows  where  images  are  needed,  and  where  by  their 
vivacity  they  would  be  obstacles  to  the  rapid  appreciation  of 
his  thought.  The  value  of  concrete  illustration  artfully  used 
may  be  seen  illustrated  in  a  passage  fromMacaulay's  invective 
against  Frederick  the  Great :  "  On  the  head_of__Frederick  is  all 
the  blood  which  was  shed  in  a  war~which  raged  during  many 
years  and  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe,  the  blood  of  the 
column  at  Fontenoy,  the  blood  of  the  mountaineers  who  were 
slaughtered  at  Culloden.  The  evils  produced  by  his  wicked- 
ness were  felt  in  lands  where  the  name  of  Prussia  was  un- 
known; and  in  order  that  he  might  rob  a  neighbor  whom  he 
had  promised  to  defend,  black  men  fought  on  the  coast  of 
Coromandel,  and  red  men  scalped  each  other  by  the  Great 
Lakes  of  North  America."  Disregarding  the  justice  or  in- 
justice of  the  thought,  note  the-singular  force  and  beauty  of 
this  passage,  deh'gh<^^»^-^-^*^  tr> _aaj_^jTf]  iWi'nri;  anH  observe 
how  its  very  elaborateness  has  the  effect  of  the  finest  simplicity, 
because  the  successive  pictures  are  constituents  of  the  general 
thought,  and  by  their  vividness  render  the  conclusion  more 
impressive.  Let  us  suppose  him  to  have  written  with  the 
vague  generality  of  expression  much  patronized  by  dignified 
historians,  and  told  us  that  "  Frederick  was  the  cause  of  great  / 
European  conflicts  extending  over  long  periods;  and  in  con-i 
sequence  of  his  political  aggression  hideous  crimes  were  per-^ 
petrated  in  the  most  distant  part&xilih&^lobe."  X^his  absence! 
of  concrete  images  would  not  have  been  simplicity,  inasmuch 
as  the  labor  of  converting  the  gener«Cl  expressions  into  definite 
meanings  would  thus  have  been  thrown  upon  the  reader. 


344  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Pictorial  illustration  has  its  dangers,  as  we  daily  see  in 
the  clumsy  imitators  of  Macaulay,  who  have  not  the  fine 
instinct  of  style,  but  obey  the  vulgar  instinct  of  display,  and 
imagine  they  can  produce  a  brilliant  effect  by  the  use  of 
strong  lights,  whereas  they  distract  the  attention  with  images 
alien  to  the  general  impression,  just  as  crude  colorists  vex 
the  eye  with  importunate  splendors.  Nay,  even  good  writers 
sometimes  sacrifice  the  large  effect  of  a  diffusive  light  to  the 
small  effect  of  a  brilliant  point.  This  is  a  defect  of  taste 
frequently  noticeable  in  two  very  good  writers,  De  Quincey 
and  Ruskin,  whose  command  of  expression  is  so  varied  that 
it  tempts  them  into  fioritura  as  flexibility  of  voice  tempts 
singers  to  sin  against  simplicity.  At  the  close  of  an  eloquent 
passage  De  Quincey  writes :  — 

"  Gravitation,  again,  that  works  without  holiday  forever, 
and  searches  every  corner  of  the  universe,  what  intellect  can 
follow  it  to  its  fountains  ?  And  yet,  shyer  than  gravitation, 
less  to  be  counted  than  the  fluxions  of  sun-dials,  stealthier 
than  the  growth  of  a  forest,  are  the  footsteps  of  Christianity 
amongst  the  political  workings  of  man." 

The  association  of  holidays  and  shyness  with  an  idea  so 
abstract  as  that  of  gravitation,  the  use  of  the  learned  word 
fluxions  to  express  the  movements  of  the  shadows  on  a  dial, 
and  the  discordant  suggestion  of  stealthiness  applied  to  veg- 
etable growth  and  Christianity,  are  so  many  offences  against 
simplicity.  Let  the  passage  be  contrasted  with  one  in  which 
wealth  of  imagery  is  in  accordance  with  the  thought  it  ex- 
presses :  — ■ 

"  In  the  edifices  of  Man  there  should  be  found  reverent 
worship  and  following,  not  only  of  the  spirit  which  rounds 
the  pillars  of  the  forest,  and  arches  the  vault  of  the  avenue 
—  which  gives  veining  to  the  leaf  and  polish  to  the  shell,  and 
grace  to  every  pulse  that  agitates  animal  organization  —  but 


LEWES  345 

of  that  also  which  reproves  the  pillars  of  the  earth,  and  builds 
up  her  barren  precipices  into  the  coldness  of  the  clouds,  and 
lifts  her  shadowy  cones  of  mountain  purple  into  the  pale  arch 
of  the  sky;  for  these,  and  other  glories  more  than  these, 
refuse  not  to  connect  themselves,  in  his  thoughts,  with  the 
work  of  his  own  hand;  the  gray  cliff  loses  not  its  nobleness 
when  it  reminds  us  of  some  Cyclopean  waste  of  mural  stone; 
the  pinnacles  of  the  rocky  promontory  arrange  themselves, 
undegraded,  into  fantastic  semblances  of  fortress  towers, 
and  even  the  awful  cone  of  the  far-off  mountain  has  a  melan- 
choly mixed  with  that  of  its  own  solitude,  which  is  cast  from 
the  images  of  nameless  tumuli  on  white  sea-shores,  and  of 
the  heaps  of  reedy  clay,  into  which  chambered  cities  melt  in 
their  mortality."  * 

I  ?hall  notice  but  two  points  in  this  singularly  beautiful 
passage.  The  one  is  the  exquisite  instinct  of  Sequence  in 
several  of  the  phrases,  not  only  as  to  harmony,  but  as  to  the 
evolution  of  the  meaning,  especially  in  "  builds  up  her  barren 
precipices  into  the  coldness  of  the  clouds,  and  lifts  her  shadowy 
cones  of  mountain  purple  into  the  pale  arch  of  the  sky,"*  The 
other  is  the  injurious  effect  of  three  words  in  the  sentence, 
"  for  these,  and  other  glories  more  than  these,  refuse  not  to 
connect  themselves  in  his  thoughts."  Strike  out  the  words 
printed  in  italics,  and  you  not  only  improve  the  harmony,  but 
free  the  sentence  from  a  disturbing  use  of  what  Ruskin  has 
named  the  "  pathetic  fallacy."  There  are  times  in  which 
Nature  may  be  assumed  as  in  sympathy  with  our  moods; 
and  at  such  times  the  pathetic  fallacy  is  a  source  of  subtle 
effect.  But  in  the  passage  just  quoted  the  introduction  seems 
to  me  a  mistake:  the  simplicity  of  the  thought  is  disturbed  by 
this  hint  of  an  active  participation  of  Nature  in  man's  feelings; 
it  is  preserved  in  its  integrity  by  the  omission  of  that  hint. 

*  Rusli... 


346  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  TV  LITERATURE 

These  illustrations  will  suffice  to  show  how  the  law  we  are 
considering  will  command  and  forbid  the  use  of  concrete 
expressions  and  vivid  imagery  according  to  the  purpose  of 
the  writer.  A  fine  taste  guided  by  Sincerity  will  determine 
that  use.  Nothing  more  than  a  general  rule  can  be  laid 
down.  Eloquence,  as  I  said  before,  cannot  spring  from  the 
simple  desire  to  be  eloquent ;  the  desire  usually  leads  to  gran- 
diloquence. But  Sincerity  will  save  us.  We  have  but  to 
remember  Montesquieu's  advice:  "  II  faut  prendre  garde  aux 
grandes  phrases  dans  les  humbles  sujets;  elles  produisent 
I'effet  d'une  masque  a  barbe  blanche  sur  la  joue  d'un 
enfant." 

Here  another  warning  may  be  placed.  In  our  anxiety 
lest  we  err  on  the  side  of  grandiloquence  we  may  perhaps 
fall  into  the  opposite  error  of  tameness.  Sincerity  will  save 
us  here  also.  Let  us  but  express  the  thought  and  feeling 
actually  in  our  minds,  then  our  very  grandiloquence  (if  that 
is  our  weakness)  will  have  a  certain  movement  and  vivacity 
not  without  effect,  and  our  tameness  (if  we  are  tame)  will 
have  a  gentleness  not  without  its  charm. 

Finally,  let  us  banish  from  our  critical  superstitions  the 
notion  that  chastity  of  composition,  or  simplicity  of  Style,  is 
in  any  respect  allied  to  timidity.  There  are  two  kinds  of 
timidity,  or  rather  it  has  two  different  origins,  both  of  which 
cripple  the  free  movement  of  thought.  The  one  is  the  timidity 
of  fastidiousness,  the  other  of  placid  stupidity:  the  one 
shrinks  from  originality  lest  it  should  be  regarded  as  im- 
pertinent; the  other  lest,  being  new,  it  should  be  wrong.  We 
detect  the  one  in  the  sensitive  discreetness  of  the  style.  We 
detect  the  other  in  the  complacency  of  its  platitudes  and  the 
stereotyped  commonness  of  its  meta])hors.  The  writer  who 
is  afraid  of  originality  feels  himself  in  deep  water  when  he 
launches  into  a  commonplace.     For  him  who  is  timid  be- 


LE  WES  347 

cause  weak,  there  is  no  advice,  except  suggesting  the  pro- 
priety of  silence.  For  him  who  is  timid  because  fastidious, 
there  is  this  advice :  get  rid  of  the  superstition  about  chastity, 
and  recognize  the  truth  that  a  style  may  be  simple,  even  if  it 
move  amid  abstractions,  or  employ  few  Saxon  words,  or 
abound  in  concrete  images  and  novel  turns  of  expression. 

III.    The  Law  of  Sequence 

Much  that  might  be  included  under  this  head  would  equally 
well  find  its  place  under  that  of  Economy  or  that  of  Climax. 
Indeed  it  is  obvious  that  to  secure  perfect  Economy  there 
must  be  that  sequence  of  the  words  which  will  present  the 
least  obstacle  to  the  unfolding  of  the  thought,  and  that 
Climax  is  only  attainable  through  a  properly  graduated 
sequence.  But  there  is  another  element  we  have  to  take  into 
account,  and  that  is  the  rhythmical  effect  of  Style.  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer  in  his  Essay  very  clearly  states  the  law  of 
Sequence,  but  I  infer  that  he  would  include  it  entirely  under 
the  law  of  Economy;  at  any  rate  he  treats  of  it  solely  in 
reference  to  intelligibility,  and  not  at  all  in  its  scarcely  less 
important  relation  to  harmony.  "  We  have  a  priori  reasons," 
he  says,  "  for  believing  that  in  every  sentence  there  is  some 
one  order  of  words  more  effective  than  any  other;  and  that 
this  order  is  the  one  which  presents  the  elements  of  the  propo- 
sition in  the  succession  in  which  they  may  be  most  readily 
put  together.  As  in  a  narrative,  the  events  should  be  stated 
in  such  sequence  that  the  mind  may  not  have  to  go  back- 
wards and  forwards  in  order  to  rightly  connect  them;  as  in  a 
group  of  sentences,  the  arrangement  should  be  such,  that 
each  of  them  may  be  understood  as  it  comes,  without 
waiting  for  subsequent  ones;  so  in  every  sentence,  the 
sequence  of  words  should  be  that  which  suggests  the  con- 


^ 


348  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

stituents  of    the  thought  in   the  order  most  convenient    fol 
the  building  up  that  thought."  '^ 

But  Style  appeals  to  the  emotions  as  well  as  to  the  intellect, 
and  the^arrangerneftt'Of'woHs' and  sentences  which- will  be 
the  most  economical  may  not  be  the  most  musical,  and  the 
most  musical  may  not  be  the  most  pleasurably  effective.  For 
Climax  and  Variety  it  may  be  necessaryto^acrifice^something 
of  rapid  intelligibility:  henqe  involutipi^^^jiitithes^,  and 
suspensions,  which  disturb  the  most  orderly  arrangement, 
.  may  yetTTTfvirtiie^Df  their  own  subtlgjnfluerrcesjjbe-xaunted 
\      as  improvements  onthat  arrangement.  _y; 

Tested  by  the  In)tellect  and  thf^Feelings,  the  law  of  betjuence 
(f^  is  seen  to  be  a  curious  compound  of  the  two.     If  we  isolate 
these  elements  for  the  purposes  of  exposition,  we  shall  find 


J"  ,  that  the  principle  of  the  first  is  much  simpler  and  more  easy 

NC  of  obedience  than  the  principle  of  the  second.     It  may  be 


thus  stated :  — 

The  constituent  elements  of  the  conception  expressed  in  the 
sentence  and  the  paragraph  should  be  arranged  in  strict  cor- 
respondence with  an  inductive  or  a  deductive  progression. 

All  exposition,  like  all  research,  is  either  inductive  or  de- 
ductive. It  groups  particulars  so  as  to  lead  up  to  a  general 
conception  which  embraces  them  all,  but  which  could  not  be 
fully  understood  until  they  had  been  estimated;  or  else  it 
starts  from  some  general  conception,  already  familiar  to  the 
mind,  and  as  it  moves  along,  casts  its  light  upon  numerous 
particulars,  which  are  thus  shown  to  be  related  to  it,  but 
which  without  that  light  would  have  been  overlooked. 

If  the  reader  will  meditate  on  that  brief  statement  of  the 
principle,  he  will,.  I  think,  find  it  explain  many  doubtful  points. 
Let  me  merely  notice  one,  namely,  the  dispute  as  to  whether 
the  direct  or  the  indirect  style  should  be  preferred.  Some 
writers  insist,  and  others  practise  the  precept  without  in- 


LEWES  349 

sistence,  that  the  proposition  should  be  stated  first,  and  all 
its  qualifications  as  well  as  its  evidences  be  made  to  follow; 
others  maintain  that  the  proposition  should  be  made  to  grow 
up  step  by  step  with  all  its  evidences  and  qualifications  in 
their  due  order,  and  the  conclusion  disclose  itself  as  crown- 
ing the  whole.  Are  not  both  methods  right  under  different 
circumstances  ?  If  my  object  is  to  convince  you  of  a  general 
truth,  or  to  impress  you  with  a  feeling,  which  you  are  not 
already  prepared  to  accept,  it  is  obvious  that  the  most  effective 
method  is  the  inductive,  which  leads  your  mind  upon  a  cul- 
minating wave  of  evidence  or  emotion  to  the  very  point  I  aim 
at.  But  the  deductive  method  is  best  when  I  wish  to  direct 
the  light  of  familiar  truths  and  roused  emotions,  upon  new 
particulars,  or  upon  details  in  unsuspected  relation  to  those 
truths;  and  when  I  wish  the  attention  to  be  absorbed  by 
these  particulars  which  are  of  interest  in  themselves,  not  upon 
the  general  truths  which  are  of  no  present  interest  except 
in  as  far  as  they  light  up  these  details.  A  growing  thought 
requires  the  inductive  exposition,  an  applied  thought  the 
deductive. 

This  principle,  which  is  of  very  wide  application,  is  subject 
to  two  important  qualifications  —  one  pressed  on  it  by  the 
necessities  of  Climax  and  Variety,  the  other  by  the  feebleness 
of  memory,  which  cannot  keep  a  long  hold  of  details  unless 
their  significance  is  apprehended;  so  that  a  paragraph  of 
suspended  meaning  should  never  be  long,  and  when  the 
necessities  of  the  case  bring  together  numerous  particulars  in 
evidence  of  the  conclusion,  they  should  be  so  arranged  as  to 
have  culminating  force:  one  clause  leading  up  to  another, 
and  throwing  its  impetus  into  it,  instead  of  being  linked  on 
to  another,  and  dragging  the  mind  down  with  its  weight. 

It  is  surprising  how  few  men  understand  that  Style  is  a 
Fine  Art;   and  how  few  of  those  who  are  fastidious  in  their 


350  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

diction  give  much  care  to  the  arrangement  of  their  sentences, 
paragraphs,  and  chapters  — ^  in  a  word,  to  Composition.  The 
painter  distributes  his  masses  with  a  view  to  general  effect; 
so  does  the  musician:  writers  seldom  do  so.  Nor  do  they 
usually  arrange  the  members  of  their  sentences  in  that  se- 
quenCe  which  shalTsecure  for  each  its  proper  emphasis  and 
its  determining  influence  on  the  others  —  influence  reflected 
back  j^  influence  projected-Jorward.  As  an  example  of 
the  charm  that  lies  in  unostentatious  antiphony,  consider  this 
passage  from  Ruskin:  —  "  Originality  in  expression  does  not 
depend  on  invention  of  new  words;  nor  originality  in  poetry 
on  invention  of  new  measures;  nor  in  painting  on  invention 
of  new  colors  or  new  modes  of  using  them.  The  chords  of 
music,  the  harmonies  of  color,  the  general  principles  of  the 
arrangement  of  sculptural  masses,  have  been  determined  long 
ago,  and  in  all  probability  cannot  be  added  to  any  more  than 
they  can  be  altered."  Men  write  like  this  by  instinct;  and 
I  by  no  means  wish  to  suggest  that  writing  like  this  can  be 
produced  by  rule.  What  I  suggest  is,  that  in  this,  as  in 
every  other  Fine  Art,  instinct  does  mostly  find  itself  in  ac- 
cordance with  rule;  and  a  knowledge  of  rules  helps  to  direct 
the  blind  gropings  of  feeling,  and  to  correct  the  occasional 
mistakes  of  instinct.  If,  after  working  his  way  through  a 
long  and  involved  sentence  in  which  the  meaning  is  rough- 
hewn,  the  writer  were  to  try  its  effect  upon  ear  and  intellect, 
he  might  see  its  defects  and  reshape  it  into  beauty  and  clear- 
ness. But  in  general  men  shirk  this  labor,  partly  because  it 
is  irksome,  and  partly  because  they  have  no  distinct  concep- 
tion of  the  rules  which  would  make  the  labor  light. 

The  law  of  Sequence,  we  have  seen,  rests  upon  the  two 
requisites  of  Clearness  and  Harmony.  Men  with  a  delicate 
sense  of  rhythm  will  instinctively -distribute  their  phrases  in 
an  order  that  falls  agreeably  on  the  car,  without  monotony, 


LEWES  351 

and  without  an  echo  of  other  voices;  and  men  with  a  keen 
sense  of  logical  relation  will  instinctively  arrange  their  sen- 
tences in  an  order  that  best  unfolds  the  meaning.  The 
French  are  great  masters  of  the  law  of  Sequence,  and,  did  space 
permit,  I  could  cite  many  excellent  examples.  One  brief 
passage  from  Royer-Collard  must  suffice:  "Les  faits  que 
I'observation  laisse  epars  et  muets  la  causahte  les  rassemble, 
les  enchaine,  leur  prete  un  langage.  Chaque  fait  revele 
celui  qui  a  precede,  prophetise  celui  qui  va  suivre." 

The  ear  is  only  a  guide  to  the  harmony  of  a  period,  and  often 
tempts  us  into  the  feebleness  of  expletives  or  approximative 
expressions  for  the  sake  of  a  cadence.  Yet,  on  the  other  hand, 
if  we  disregard  the  subtle  influences  of  harmonious  arrange- 
ment,'our  thoughts  lose  much  of  the  force  which  would  other- 
wise result  from  their  logical  subordination.  The  easy  evolu- 
tion of  thought  in  a  melodious  period,  quietly  taking  upon  its 
way  a  variety  of  incidental  details,  y_et_neYeiJingering  long- 
enough  over  them  to  divert  the  attention  or  to  suspend  the 
continuous^  crescendo  of  interest,  but  by  subTIe  influences  pf 
proportion  allowing  each  clause  of  the  sentence  its  separate 
significance,  is  the  product  of  a  natural  giff,  as  rare  as  the 
gift  of  music,  or  of  poetry.^^  But  until  men  come  to  under- 
stand that  Style  is  an  art,  and  an  amazingly  difficult  art,  they 
will  continue  with  careless  presumption  to  tumble  out  their 
sentences  as  they  would  lilt  stones  from  a  cart,  trusting  very 
much  to  accident  or  gravitation  for  the  shapeliness  of  the 
result.  I  will  write  a  passage  which  may  serve  as  an  example 
of  what  I  mean,  although  the  defect  is  purposely  kept  within 
very  ordinary  limits :  — 

"To  construct  a  sentence  with  many  loosely  and  not 
obviously  dependent  clauses,  each  clause  containing  an  im- 
portant meaning  or  a  concrete  image  the  vivacity  of  which, 
like  a  boulder  in  a  shallow  stream,  disturbs  the  equable 


352  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

current  of  thought,  —  and  in  such  a  case  the  more  beautiful 
the  image  the  greater  the  obstacle,  so  that  the  laws  of  Sim- 
plicity and  Economy  are  violated  by  it,  —  while  each  clause 
really  requires  for  its  interpretation  a  proposition  that  is 
however  kept  suspended  till  the  close,  —  is  a  defect." 

The  weariness  produced  by  such  writing  as  this  is  very 
great,  and  yet  the  recasting  of  the  passage  is  easy.    Thus:  — • 

"  It  is  a  defect  when  a  sentence  is  constructed  with  many 
loosely  and  not  obviously  dependent  clauses,  each  of  which 
requires  for  its  interpretation  a  proposition  that  is  kept 
suspended  till  the  close;  and  this  defect  is  exaggerated  when 
each  clause  contains  an  important  meaning,  or  a  concrete 
image  which,  like  a  boulder  in  a  shallow  stream,  disturbs  the 
equable  current  of  thought :  the  more  beautiful  the  image,  the 
greater  its  violation  of  the  laws  of  Simphcity  and  Economy." 

In  this  second  form  the  sentence  has  no^long  suspension  of 
the  main  idea,  no  diversions  of  the  current.  The  proposition 
is  stated  and  illustrated  directly,  and  the  mind  of  the  reader 
follows  that  of  the  writer.  How  injurious  it  is  to  keep  the 
key  in  your  pocket  until  all  the  locks  in  succession  have  been 
displayed  may  be  seen  in  such  a  sentence  as  this :  — 

"  Phantoms  of  lost  power,  sudden  intuitions,  and  shadowy 
restorations  of  forgotten  feelings,  sometimes  dim  and  per- 
plexing, sometimes  by  bright  but  furtive  glimpses,  some- 
times by  a  full  and  steady  revelation,  overcharged  with  light 
—  throw  us  back  in  a  moment  upon  scenes  and  remem- 
brances that  we  have  left  full  thirty  years  behind  us." 

Had  De  Quincey  liberated  our  minds  from  suspense  by 
first  presenting  the  thought  which  first  arose  in  his  own 
mind,  —  namely,  that  we  are  thrown  back  upon  scenes  and 
remembrances  by  phantoms  of  lost  power,  &c.  —  the  beauty 
of  his  language  in  its  pregnant  suggest iveness  would  have 
been  felt  at  once.     Instead  of  that,  he  makes  us  accompany 


LEWES  353 

him  in  darkness,  and  when  the  hght  appears  we  have  to 
travel  backward  over  the  ground  again  to  see  what  we  have 
passed.    The  passage  continues:  — 

"  In  soHtudc,  and  chiefly  in  the  sohtudes  of  nature,  and, 
above  all,  amongst  the  great  and  enduring  features  of  nature, 
such  as  mountains,  and  quiet  dells,  and  the  lawny  recesses  of 
forests,  and  the  silent  shores  of  lakes,  features  with  which  (as 
being  themselves  less  hable  to  change)  our  feelings  have  a . 
more  abiding  association  —  under  these  circumstances  it  is, 
that  such  evanescent  hauntings  of  our  past  and  forgotten 
selves  are  most  apt  to  startle  and  to  waylay  us." 

The  beauty  of  this  passage  seems  to  me  marred  by  the 
awkward  yet  necessary  interruption,  "  under  these  circum- 
stances it  is,"  which  would  have  been  avoided  by  opening  the 
sentence  with  "  Such  evanescent  hauntings  of  our  forgotten 
selves  are  most  apt  to  startle  us  in  solitudes,"  &c.  Compare 
the  effect  of  directness  in  the  following :  — 

"This  was  one,  and  the  most  common,  shape  of  extin- 
guished power  from  which  Coleridge  fled  to  the  great  city. 
But  sometimes  the  same  decay  came  back  upon  his  heart  in 
the  more  poignant  shape  of  intimations  and  vanishing 
glimpses,  recovered  for  one  moment  from  the  paradise  of 
youth,  and  from  fields  of  joy  and  power,  over  which  for 
him,  too  certainly,  he  felt  that  the  cloud  of  night  was  settling 
forever."  ** 

Obedience  to  the  law  of  Sequence  gives  strength  by  giving 
clearness  and  beauty  of  rhythm;  it  economizes  force  and 
creates  music.  A  very  trifling  disregard  of  it  will  mar  an 
effect.  See  an  example  both  of  obedience  and  trifling  dis- 
obedience in  the  following  passage  from  Ruskin :  — 

"  People  speak  in  this  working  age,  when  they  speak  from 
their  hearts,  as  if  houses  and  lands,  and  food  and  raiment 
were  alone  useful,  and  as  if  Sight,  Thought,  and  Admiration 

2A 


354  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

were  all  profitless,  so  that  men  insolently  call  themselves 
Utilitarians,  who  would  turn,  if  they  had  their  way,  them- 
selves and  their  race  into  vegetables;  men  who  think,  as  far 
as  such  can  be  said  to  think,  that  the  meat  is  more  than  the 
life  and  the  raiment  than  the  body,  who  look  to  the  earth  as 
a  stable  and  to  its  fruit  as  fodder;  vine-dressers  and  hus- 
bandmen, who  love  the  corn  they  grind,  and  the  grapes  they 
crush,  better  than  the  gardens  of  the  angels  upon  the  slopes 
of  Eden." 

It  is  instructive  to  contrast  the  dislocated  sentence,  "  who 
would  turn,  if  they  had  their  way,  themselves  and  their  race," 
with  the  sentence  which  succeeds  it,  "  men  who  think,  as  far 
as  such  can  be  said  to  think,  that  the  meat,"  &c.  In  the 
latter  the  parenthetic  interruption  is  a  source  of  power : 
it  dams  the  current  to  increase  its  force ;  in  the  former  the 
inversion  is  a  loss  of  power :  it  is  a  dissonance  to  the  ear  and 
a  diversion  of  the  thought. 

As  illustrations  of  Sequence  in  composition,  two  passages 

may  be  quoted  from-Macaulay  which  display  the  power  of 

pictorial  suggestions  when,  instead  ordtverting  attention  from 

the  main^urpose^^tftey^e  arranged  with  progressive  and 

"Culminating  effecf.'' 

--Such  or  nearly  such  was  the  change  which  passed  on  the 
Mogul  empire  during  the  forty  years  which  followed  the  death 
of  Aurungzebe,  A  succession  of  nominal  sovereigns,  sunk 
in  indolence  and  debauchery,  sauntered  away  hfe  in  secluded 
palaces,  chewing  bhang,  fondling  concubines,  and  listening 
to  buffoons.  A  succession  of  ferocious  invaders  descended 
through  the  western  passes,  to  prey  on  the  defenceless 
wealth  of  Hindustan.  A  Persian  conqueror  crossed  the 
Indus,  marched  through  the  gates  of  Delhi,  and  bore  away 
in  triumph  those  treasures  of  which  the  magnificence  had  as- 
tounded Roe  and  Bernier,  the  Peacock  Throne,  on  which  the 


LEIVES  355 

richest  jewels  of  Golconda  had  been  disposed  by  the  most 
skilful  hands  of  Europe,  and  the  inestimable  Mountain  of 
Light,  which,  after  many  strange  vicissitudes,  lately  shone  in 
the  bracelet  of  Runjeet- Singh,  and  is  now  destined  to  adorn  the 
hideous  idol  of  Orissa.  The  Afghan  soon  followed  to  com- 
plete the  work  of  devastation  which  the  Persian  had  begun. 
The  warhke  tribes  of  Rajpootana  threw  off  the  Mussulman 
yoke.  A  band  of  mercenary  soldiers  occupied  Rohilcund. 
The  Seiks  ruled  on  the  Indus.  The  Jauts  spread  dismay  along 
the  Jumnah.  The  high  lands  which  border  on  the  western 
seacoast  of  India  poured  forth  a  yet  more  formidable  race,  a 
race  which  was  long  the  terror  of  every  native  power,  and 
which,  after  many  desperate  and  doubtful  struggles,  yielded 
only  to  the  fortune  and  genius  of  England.  It  was  under  the 
reign  of  Aurungzebc  that  this  wild  clan  of  plunderers  first 
descended  from  their  mountains;  and  soon  after  his  death, 
every  corner  of  his  wide  empire  learned  to  tremble  at  the 
mighty  name  of  the  Mahrattas.  Many  fertile  viceroyalties 
were  entirely  subdued  by  them.  Their  dominions  stretched 
across  the  peninsula  from  sea  to  sea.  Mahratta  captains 
reigned  at  Poonah,  at  Gualior,  in  Guzerat,  in  Berar,  and  in 
Tanjore." 

Such  prose  as  this-affecta_us. like  poetry.  The  pictures  and 
suggestiQns  might  possibly  have  been  gathered  together  by 
any  other  historian;  but  the  artful  succession,  the  perfect 
sequence,  could  only  have  been  found  by  a  fincL  writer.  I  pass 
over  a  few  paragraphs,  and  pause  at  this  second  example  of  a 
sentence  simple  in  structure,  though  complex  in  its  elements, 
fed  but  not  overfed  with  material,  and  almost  perfect  in  its 
cadence  a^d  logical  connection.  "  Sicarcely  any^rfran;  how- 
""ever  sagIcious7would  have~thought  it  possible  that  a  trading 
company,  separated  from  India  by  fifteen  thousand  miles  of 
sea,  and  possessing  in  India  only  a  few  acres  for  purposes  of 


356  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

commerce,  would,  in  less  than  a  hundred  years,  spread  its 
empire  from  Cape  Comorin  to  the  eternal  snow  of  the  Hima- 
layas; would  compel  Mahratta  and  Mahommedan  to  forget 
their  mutual  feuds  in  common  subjection;  would  tame  down 
even  those  wild  races  which  had  resisted  the  most  powerful  of 
the  Moguls;  and  having  united  under  its  laws  a  hundred 
millions  of  subjects,  would  carry  its  victorious  arms  far  to  the 
east  of  the  Burrampooter,  and  far  to  the  west  of  the  Hydaspes, 
dictate  terms  of  peace  at  the  gates  of  Ava,  and  seat  its  vassal 
on  the  throne  of  Candahar." 

Let  us  see  the  same  principle  exhibited  in  a  passage  at  once 
pictorial  and  argumentative.  "  We  know  more  certainly 
every  day,"  says  Ruskin,  "  that  whatever  appears  to  us 
harmful  in  the  universe  has  some  beneficent  or  necessary 
operation;  that  the  storm  which  destroys  a  harvest  brightens 
the  sunbeams  for  harvests  yet  unsown,  and  that  the  volcano 
which  buries  a  city  preserves  a  thousand  from  destruction. 
But  the  evil  is  not  for  the  time  less  fearful  because  we  have 
learned  it  to  be  necessary;  and  we  easily  understand  the 
timidity  or  the  tenderness  of  the  spirit  which  would  withdraw 
itself  from  the  presence  of  destruction,  and  create  in  its  im- 
agination a  world  of  which  the  peace  should  be  unbroken,  in 
which  the  sky  should  not  darken  nor  the  sea  rage,  in  which  the 
leaf  should  not  change  nor  the  blossom  wither.  That  man  is 
greater,  however,  who  contemplates  with  an  equal  mind  the 
alternation  of  terror  and  of  beauty;  who,  not  rejoicing  less 
Ijeneath  the  sunny  sky,  can  bear  also  to  watch  the  bars  of 
twilight  narrowing  on  the  horizon;  and,  not  less  sensible  to 
the  blessing  of  the  peace  of  nature,  can  rejoice  in  the  mag- 
nificence of  the  ordinances  by  which  that  peace  is  protected 
and  secured.  But  separated  from  both  by  an  immeasurable 
distance  would  be  the  man  who  delighted  in  convulsion  and 
disease  for  their  own  sake;   who  found  his  daily  food  in  the 


LEWES  357 

disorder  of  nature  mingled  with  the  suffering  of  humanity; 
and  watched  joyfully  at  the  right  hand  of  the  Angel  whose 
appointed  work  is  to  destroy  as  well  as  to  accuse,  while  the 
corners  of  the  House  of  Feasting  were  struck  by  the  wind  from 
the  wilderness." 

I  will  now  cite  a  passage  from  Burke,  which  will  seem  tame 
after  the  pictorial  animation  of  the  passages  from  Macaulay 
and  Ruskin;  but  which,  because  it  is  simply  an  exposition 
of  opinions  addressed  to  the  understanding,  will  excellently 
illustrate  the  principle  I  am  enforcing.  He  is  treating  of  the 
dethronement  of  kings.  "As  it  was  not  made  for  common 
abuses,  so  it  is  not  to  be  agitated  by  common  minds.  The 
speculative  line  of  demarcation,  where  obedience  ought  to  end, 
and  resistance  must  begin,  is  faint,  obscure,  and  not  easily 
definable.  It  is  not  a  single  act,  or  a  single  event,  which 
determines  it.  Governments  must  be  abused  and  deranged 
indeed,  before  it  can  be  thought  of;  and  the  prospect  of  the 
future  must  be  as  bad  as  the  experience  of  the  past.  When 
things  are  in  that  lamentable  condition,  the  nature  of  the 
disease  is  to  indicate  the  remedy  to  those  whom  nature  has 
qualified  to  administer  in  extremities  this  critical,  ambiguous, 
bitter  potion  to  a  distempered  state.  Times  and  occasions, 
and  provocations,  will  teach  their  own  lessons.  The  wise  will 
determine  from  the  gravity  of  the  case;  the  irritable  from 
sensibility  to  oppression;  the  high-minded  from  disdain  and 
indignation  at  abusive  power  in  unworthy  hands;  the  brave 
and  bold  from  the  love  of  honorable  danger  in  a  generous 
cause:  but,  with  or  without  right,  a  revolution  will  be  the 
very  last  resource  of  the  thinking  and  the  good."*^ 

As  a  final  example  I  will  cite  a  passage  from  M.  Taine :  — 
"  De  la  encore  cette  insolence  contre  les  inferieurs,  et  ce  mepris 
versd  d'etage  en  etage  depuis  le  premier  jusqu'au  dernier. 
Lorsque  dans  une  society  la  loi  consacre  les  conditions  inegalcs, 


358  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

personne  n'est  exempt  d'insulte;  le  grand  seigneur,  outrage 
par  le  roi,  outrage  le  noble  qui  outrage  le  peuple;  la  nature 
humaine  est  humilie  a  tous  les  etages,  ct  la  societe  n'est  plus 
qu'un  commerce  d'affronts." 

The  law  of  Sequence  by  no  means  prescribes  that  we  should 
invariably  state  the  proposition  before  its  quahfications  — 
the  thought  before  its  illustrations;  it  merely  prescribes  that 
we  should  arrange  our  phrases  in  the  order  of  logical  de- 
pendence and  rhythmical  cadence,  the  order  best  suited  for 
clearness  and  for  harmony.  The  nature  of  the  thought  will 
determine  the  one,  our  sense  of  euphony  the  other. 

IV.    The  Law  of  Climax 

We  need  not  pause  long  over  this;  it  is  generally  under- 
stood. The  condition  of  our  sensibilities  issuch  that  to  pro- 
duce their  effect  stimulants  must  be  progressive  in  fnten- 
sity  and  varied  in  kind.  OnTthis  condil^ion  rest-lthe  laws  of 
Climax  and  Variety.  The  phrase  or  image  which  in  one 
position  will  have  a  mild  power  of  occupying  the  thoughts,  or 
stimulating  the  emotions,  loses  this  power  if  made  to  succeed 
one  of  like  kind  but  more  agitating  influence,  and  will  gain 
an  accession  of  power  if  it  be  artfully  placed  on  the  wave  of  a 
/  climax.    We  laugh  at 

"  Then  came  Dalhousie,  that  great  God  of  War, 
Lieutenant-Colonel  to  the  Earl  of  Mar," 

because  of  the  relaxation  which  follows  the  sudden  tension  of 
themtnd;  but  if  we-remove  the  idea  of  the  colonelcy  from 
this  position  of  anti-climax,  the  same  couplet  becomes 
energetic  rather  than  ludicrous:  — 

"  Lieutenant-Colcnel  to  the  Earl  of  Mar, 
,  Then  came  Dalhousie,  that  great  God  of  War." 


LEWES  359 

I  have  selected  this  strongly  marked  case,  instead  of  several 
feeble  passages  which  might  be  chosen  from  the  first  book 
at  hand,  wherein  carelessness  allows  the  sentences  to  close 
with  the  least  important  phrases,  and  the  style  droops  under 
frequent  anti-climax.  Let  me  now  cite  a  passage  from 
Macaulay  which  vividly  illustrates  the  effect  of  Climax:  — 
"  Never,  perhaps,  was  the  change  which  the  progress 
of  civilization  has  produced  in  the  art  of  war  more  strikingly 
illustrated  than  on  that  day.  Ajax  beating  down  the  Trojan 
leader  with  a  rock  which  two  ordinary  men  could  scarcely 
lift,  Horatius  defending  the  bridge  against  an  army,  Rich- 
ard the  Lion-hearted  spurring  along  the  whole  Saracen  line 
without  finding  an  enemy  to  withstand  his  assault,  Robert 
Bruce  crushing  with  one  blow  the  helmet  and  head  of  Sir 
Henry  Bohun  in  sight  of  the  whole  array  of  England  and 
Scotland,  such  are  the  heroes  of  a  dark  age.  [Here  is 
an  example  of  suspended  meaning,  where  the  suspense  inten- 
sifies the  effect,  because  each  particular  is  vividly  appre- 
hended in  itself,  and  all  cubninate  in  the  conclusion;  they 
do  not  comphcate  the  thought,  or  puzzle  us,  they  only  heighten 
expectation.]  In  such  an  age  bodily  vigor  is  the  most  in- 
dispensable qualification  of  a  warrior.  At  Landen  two 
poor  sickly  beings,  who,  in  a  rude  state  of  society,  would 
have  been  regarded  as  too  puny  to  bear  any  part  in  combats, 
were  the  souls  of  two  great  armies.  In  some  heathen  coun- 
tries they  would  have  been  exposed  while  infants.  In  Chris- 
tendom they  would,  six  hundred  years  earlier,  have  been  sent 
to  some  quiet  cloister.  But  their  lot  had  fallen  on  a  time  when 
men  had  discovered  that  the  strength  of  the  muscles  is  far 
inferior  in  value  to  the  strength  of  the  mind.  It  is  probable 
that,  among  the  hundred  and  twenty  thousand  soldiers  who 
v/ere  marshalled  round  Neerwinden  under  all  the  standards  of 
Western  Europe,  the  two  feeblest  in  body  were  the  hunch- 


360  THEORIES    OE  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

backed  dwarf  who  urged  forward  the  fiery  onset  of  France, 
and  the  asthmatic  skeleton  who  covered  the  slow  retreat  of 
England." 

The  effect  of  Climax  is  very  marked  in  the  drama.  Every 
speech,  every  scene,  every  act,  should  have  its  progressive 
sequence.  Nothing  can  be  more  injudicious  than  a  trivial 
phrase  following  an  energetic  phrase,  a  feeble  thought  suc- 
ceeding a  burst  of  passion,  or  even  a  passionate  thought 
succeeding  one  more  passionate.  Yet  this  error  is  frequently 
committed. 

In  the  drama  all  laws  of  Style  are  more  imperious  than 
in  fiction  or  prose  of  any  kind,  because  the  art  is  more 
intense.  But  Climax  is  demanded  in  every  species  of  com- 
position, for  it  springs  from  a  psychological  necessity.  It 
is  pressed  upon,  however,  by  the  law  of  Variety  in  a  way 
to  make  it  far  from  safe  to  be  too  rigidly  followed.  It  easily 
degenerates  into  monotony. 

V.   The  Law  of  Variety 

Someone,  after  detailing  an  elaborate  recipe  for  a  salad, 
wound  up  the  enumeration  of  ingredients  and  quantities  with 
the  advice  to  "  open  the  window  and  throw  it  all  away." 
This  advice  might  be  apphed  to  the  foregoing  enumeration 
of  the  laws  of  Style,  unless  these  were  supplemented  by  the 
important  law  of  Variety.  A  style  which  rigidly  interpreted 
the  precepts  of  economy,  simphcity,  sequence,  and  climax, 
which  rejected  all  superfluous  words  and  redundant  orna- 
ments, adopted  the  easiest  and  most  logical  arrangement,  and 
closed  every  sentence  and  every  paragraph  with  a  climax, 
might  be  a  very  perfect  bit  of  mosaic,  but  would  want  the  glow 
and  movement  of  a  living  mind.  Monotony  would  settle 
on  it  Hke  a  paralyzing  frost.     A  series  of  sentences  in  which 


LEWES  361 

every  phrase  was  a  distinct  thought,  would  no  more  serve  as 
pabulum  for  the  mind,  than  portable  soup  freed  from  all  the 
fibrous  tissues  of  meat  and  vegetable  would  serve  as  food  for 
the  body.  Animals  perish  from  hunger  in  the  presence  of  pure 
albumen;  and  minds  would  lapse  into  idiocy  in  the  presence 
of  unadulterated  thought.  But  without  invoking  extreme 
cases,  let  us  simply  remember  the  psychological  fact  that  it  is 
as  easy  for  sentences  to  be  too  compact  as  for  food  to  be  too 
concentrated;  and  that  many  a  happy  negligence,  which  to 
microscopic  criticism  may  appear  defective,  will  be  the  means 
of  giving  clearness  and  grace  to  a  style.  Of  course  the 
indolent  indulgence  in  this  laxity  robs  style  of  all  grace  and 
power.  But  monotony  in  the  structure  of  sentences,  mo- 
notony of  cadence,  monotony  of  climax,  monotony  any- 
where, necessarily  defeats  the  very  aim  and  end  of  style; 
it  calls  attention  to  the  manner;  it  blunts  the  sensibihties; 
it  renders  excellences  odious. 

"  Beauty  deprived  of  its  proper  foils  and  adjuncts  ceases 
to  be  enjoyed  as  beauty,  just  as  light  deprived  of  all  shadow 
ceases  to  be  enjoyed  as  light.  A  white  canvas  cannot  produce 
an  effect  of  sunshine;  the  painter  must  darken  it  in  some 
places  before  he  can  make  it  look  luminous  in  others;  nor  can 
an  uninterrupted  succession  of  beauty  produce  the  true  effect 
of  beauty;  it  must  be  foiled  by  inferiority  before  its  own 
power  can  be  developed.  Nature  has  for  the  most  part 
mingled  her  inferior  and  noble  elements  as  she  mingles  sun- 
shine with  shade,  giving  due  use  and  influence  to  both,  and 
the  painter  who  chooses  to  remove  the  shadow,  perishes  in 
the  burning  desert  he  has  created.  The  truly  high  and  beau- 
tiful art  of  Angelico  is  continually  refreshed  and  strength- 
ened by  his  frank  portraiture  of  the  most  ordinary  features 
of  his  brother  monks  and  of  the  recorded  peculiarities  of  un- 
gainly sanctity;    but  the  modern  German  and  Raphaelesque 


362  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

schools  lose  all  honor  and  nobleness  in  barber-like  admira- 
tion of  handsome  faces,  and  have,  in  fact,  no  real  faith  except 
in  straight  noses,  and  curled  hair.  Paul  Veronese  opposes 
the  dwarf  to  the  soldier,  and  the  negrcss  to  the  queen;  Shake- 
speare places  Cahban  beside  Miranda,  and  Autolycus  beside 
Perdita;  but  the  vulgar  idealist  withdraws  his  beauty  to 
the  safety  of  the  saloon,  and  his  innocence  to  the  seclusion 
of  the  cloister;  he  pretends  that  he  does  this  in  delicacy  of 
choice  and  purity  of  sentiment,  while  in  truth  he  has  neither 
courage  to  front  the  monster,  nor  wit  enough  to  furnish  the 
knave."  * 

And  how  is  Variety  to  be  secured  ?  The  plan  is  simple, 
but  like  many  other  simple  plans,  is  not  without  difhculty.  It 
is  for  the  writer  to  obey  the  great  cardinal  principle  of  Sincer- 
ity, and  be  brave  enough  to  express  himself  in  his  own  way, 
following  the  moods  of  his  own  mind,  rather  than  endeavor- 
ing to  catch  the  accents  of  another,  or  to  adapt  himself  to  some 
standard  of  taste.  No  man  really  thinks  and  feels  monoto- 
nously. If  he  is  monotonous  in  his  manner  of  setting  forth 
his  thoughts  and  feelings,  that  is  either  because  he  has  not 
learned  the  art  of  writing,  or  because  he  is  more  or  less  con- 
sciously imitating  the  manner  of  others.  The  subtle  play  of 
thought  will  give  movement  and  life  to  his  style  if  he  do  not 
clog  it  with  critical  superstitions.  I  do  not  say  that  it  will 
give  him  grace  and  power;  I  do  not  say  that  relying  on  perfect 
sincerity  will  make  him  a  fine  writer,  because  sincerity  will 
not  give  talent ;  but  I  say  that  sincerity  will  give  him  all  the 
power  that  is  possible  to  him,  and  v/ill  secure  him  the  inesti- 
mable excellence  of  Variety. 

*  Ruskin. 


LEWES  363 

'From  De  Quinccy's  essay  on  Language  {Works,  ed.  Masson,  Vol.  10, 
jjp.  260,  261). 

^  Professor  Scott  points  out  a  parallel  in  Buffon ;  see  above,  p.  177. 

'  Compare  Warkernagcl,  above,  p.  10,  and  De  Quincey,  above,  p.  226. 

*  Compare  Wackernagel,  above,  p.  16. 

^  Compare  above,  p.  179. 

'  Boileau,  V Art  Poetiqiie,  Canto  1. 1.  80. 

'  Compare  Goethe,  above,  p.  197. 

'  Compare  Spencer,  above,  p.  273. 

'  See  above,  p.  no. 

'"  Compare  the  translator's  note  on  p.  267,  and  Schopenhauer's  sentence 
on  p.  269,  commencing  with  the  words,  "  It  consists  in  .  .  .  ." 

"  Denham:  Cooper's  Hill,  1.  192. 

*^  See  above,  p.  278. 

*'  Compare  Note  10. 

'*  De  Quincey  on  Coleridge  (De  Quincey's  Works,  ed.  Masson,  Vol.  2, 
pp.  204,  205). 

"  Burke's  Works  (Bohn  Ed.),  Vol.  2,  p.  304. 


364  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

XV 

ROBERT   LOUIS   STEVENSON  (1850-1894) 
On  Some  Technical  Elements  of  Style  in  Literature*  (1885) 

[From  The  Works  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson,  New  York  (Scribner's), 
1898  (Vol.  22,  pp.  243-265). 

This  paper  was  first  printed  in  the  Contemporary  Review 
for  April,  1885  (Vol.  47,  pp.  548-561),  under  the  rather  sweep- 
ing title,  On  Style  in  Literature:  Its  Technical  Elements; 
a  heading  subsequently  modified  so  as  to  seem  less  inclusive. 
"  Some  Technical  Elements  of  Style  "  more  appropriately 
describes  the  purport  of  Stevenson's  essay,  for,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  author's  views,  though  original,  are  not  too  broad; 
his  attention  is  fixed  upon  the  minuter  tissues  of  expression 
rather  than  such  larger,  structural  elements  as  still  fall 
within  the  province  of  a  theory  of  style.  The  wisest  theory 
will  disregard  neither.  Without  question,  Stevenson's  views 
are  original,  first,  in  that  he  speaks  from  a  successful  expe- 
rience in  his  craft  —  he  has  practised  what  he  preaches;  sec- 
ond, in  that  he  puts  novel  emphasis  upon  matters  usually  neg- 
lected or  held  incapable  of  being  taught  (cf.  Mr.  Harrison's 
query,  —  "  Whence  comes  the  music  of  language?  "  —  below, 
p.  439)  ;  third,  in  that  he  betrays  no  influence  from  the  clas- 
sical authorities  on  rhetoric,  since,  unfortunately,  he  appears 
never  to  have  read  them  (cf.  his  Life  by  Graham  Balfour, 
Vol.  2,  p.  14).  We  can  scarcely  suppose  that  a  wholesome 
contact  with  the  broad  and  sane  writings  of  the  ancients  would 
have  diminished  the  spontaneity  of  his  unusual  insight. 

It  is  proper  to  observe  that  Stevenson  hardly  considered 
this  paper  —  "  the  work  of  five  days  in  bed  "  —  as  his  final 
pronouncement  upon  the  subject  of  hterary  technique,  al- 
though he  set  a  high  value  on  it.  '*  I  have  written,"  he  says 
in  a  contemporary  letter  to  W.  E.  Henley,  "  a  long  and 
peculiarly  solemn  paper  on  the  technical  elements  of  style. 

*  From  Letters  and  Miscellanies  of  Robert  Louis  Stevenson.  Copyright,  1898, 
by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


STEVENSON  365 

It  is  path-breaking  and  epoch-making;  but  I  do  not  think 
the  pubHc  will  be  readily  convoked  to  its  perusal  "  {Letters, 
Vol.  I,  p.  408).  Elsewhere  he  mentions  it  in  a  similar  strain 
of  irony,  yet  perhaps  with  less  real  confidence:  "  It  is  a  sort 
of  start  upon  my  treatise  on  The  Art  of  Literature:  a  small 
arid  book  that  shall  some  day  appear"  {Letters,  Vol.  i, p.  420). 
Since  Stevenson's  death  his  various  papers  on  literary  tech- 
nique have  been  published  in  a  single  volume,  entitled  Essays 
in  the  Art  of  Writing  (London,  Chatto  &  Windus).  It  can- 
not be  said,  however,  that  he  ever  worked  out  a  comprehen- 
sive theory. 

Stevenson's  practice  as  a  stylist  has  had  the  fortune  of  a 
methodical  treatment  in  German:  Characteristische  Eigen- 
schajten  von  R.  L.  Stevenson's  Stil  von  Wm.  P.  Chalmers, 
Marhurger  Studien  zur  englischen  Philologie,  Heft  4  (1903) ; 
a  praiseworthy  effort,  valuable  for  its  analysis  and  examples; 
it  should,  however,  have  been  put  into  English.  Incidental 
observations  on  Stevenson's  style  are  made,  by  a  most  compe- 
tent judge,  in  the  Nation  for  January  9,  1896  (Vol.  62,  p.  37). 

In  the  following  text  the  paragraphing  of  the  Contemporary 
has  in  several  instances  been  restored.] 

There  is  nothing  more  disenchanting  to  man  than  to  be 
shown  the  springs  and  mechanism  of  any  art.  All  our  arts  and 
occupations  lie  wholly  on  the  surface;  it  is  on  the  surface  that 
we  perceive  their  beauty,  fitness,  and  significance ;  and  to  pry 
below  is  to  be  appalled  by  their  emptiness  and  shocked  by  the 
coarseness  of  the  strings  and  pulleys.  In  a  similar  way,  psy- 
chology itself,  when  pushed  to  any  nicety,  discovers  an  abhor- 
rent baldness,  but  rather  from  the  fault  of  our  analysis  than 
from  any  poverty  native  to  the  mind.  And  perhaps  in  aesthet- 
ics the  reason  is  the  same  :  those  disclosures  which  seem  fatal 
to  the  dignity  of  art,  seem  so  perhaps  only  in  the  proportion  of 
our  ignorance ;  and  those  conscious  and  unconscious  artifices 
which  it  seems  unworthy  of  the  serious  artist  to  employ, 
were  yet,  if  we  had  the  power  to  trace  them  to  their  springs, 


366  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

indications  of  a  delicacy  of  the  sense  finer  than  we  conceive, 
and  hints  of  ancient  harmonies  in  nature.  This  ignorance 
at  least  is  largely  irremediable.  We  shall  never  learn  the 
affinities  of  beauty,  for  they  lie  too  deep  in  nature  and  too  far 
back  in  the  mysterious  history  of  man.  The  amateur,  in 
consequence,  will  always  grudgingly  receive  details  of  method, 
which  can  be  stated  but  can  never  wholly  be  explained;  nay, 
on  the  principle  laid  down  in  Hudibras,  that 

"  still  the  less  they  understand, 
The  more  they  admire  the  sleight-of-hand," 

many  are  conscious  at  each  new  disclosure  of  a  diminution  in 
the  ardor  of  their  pleasure.  I  must  therefore  warn  that  well- 
imown  character,  the  general  reader,  that  I  am  here  em- 
barked upon  a  most  distasteful  business:  taking  down  the 
picture  from  the  wall  and  looking  on  the  back;  and  like  the 
inquiring  child,  pulling  the  musical  cart  to  pieces. 

I.  Choice  of  Words.  — The  art  of  Uterature  stands  apart 
from  among  its  sisters,  because  the  material  in  which  the 
literary  artist  works  is  the  dialect  of  life;  hence,  on  the  one 
hand,  a  strange  freshness  and  immediacy  of  address  to  the 
pubhc  mind,  which  is  ready  prepared  to  understand  it;  but 
hence,  on  the  other,  a  singular  limitation.  The  sister  arts 
enjoy  the  use  of  a  plastic  and  ductile  material,  like  the 
modeller's  clay;  Hterature  alone  is  condemned  to  work  in 
mosaic  with  finite  and  quite  rigid  words.  You  have  seen 
these  blocks,  dear  to  the  nursery:  this  one  a  pillar,  that  a 
pediment,  a  third  a  window  or  a  vase.  It  is  with  blocks  of 
just  such  arbitrary  size  and  figure  that  the  literary  architect 
is  condemned  to  design  the  palace  of  his  art.  Nor  is  this  all; 
for  since  these  blocks,  or  words,  are  the  acknowledged 
currency  of  our  daily  affairs,  there  are  here  possible  none  of 
those  suppressions  by  which  other  arts  obtain  relief,  continu- 


STEVENSON  367 

ity,  and  vigor:  no  hieroglyphic  touch,  no  smoothed  impasto, 
no  inscrutable  shadow,  as  in  painting;  no  blank  wall,  as  in  ar- 
chitecture; but  every  word,  phrase,  sentence,  and  paragraph 
must  move  in  a  logical  progression,  and  convey  a  deiinite  con- 
ventional import. 

Now  the  first  merit  which  attracts  in  the  pages  of  a  good 
writer,  or  the  talk  of  a  briUiant  conversationahst,  is  the  apt 
choice  and  contrast  of  the  words  employed.  It  is,  indeed,  a 
strange  art  to  take  these  blocks,  rudely  conceived  for  the 
purpose  of  the  market  or  the  bar,  and  by  tact  of  application 
touch  them  to  the  finest  meanings  and  distinctions,  restore  to 
them  their  primal  energy,  wittily  shift  them  to  another  issue, 
or  make  of  them  a  drum  to  rouse  the  passions.  But  though 
this  form  of  merit  is  without  doubt  the  most  sensible  and  seiz- 
ing, it  is  far  from  being  equally  present  in  all  writers.  The 
effect  of  words  in  Shakespeare,  their  singular  justice,  signifi- 
cance, and  poetic  charm,  is  different,  indeed,  from  the  effect 
of  words  in  Addison  or  Fielding.  Or,  to  take  an  example 
nearer  home,  the  words  in  Carlyle  seem  electrified  into  an 
energy  of  lineament,  like  the  faces  of  men  furiously  moved ; 
whilst  the  words  inMacaulay,  apt  enough  to  convey  his  mean- 
ing, harmonious  enough  in  sound,  yet  glide  from  the  memory 
like  undistinguished  elements  in  a  general  effect.  But  the 
first  class  of  writers  have  no  monopoly  of  literary  merit. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  Addison  is  superior  to  Carlyle;  a 
sense  in  which  Cicero  is  better  than  Tacitus,  in  which  Voltaire 
excels  Montaigne :  it  certainly  lies  not  in  the  choice  of  words; 
it  lies  not  in  the  interest  or  value  of  the  matter;  it  lies  not  in 
force  of  intellect,  of  poetry,  or  of  humor.  The  three  first  are 
but  infants  to  the  three  second;  and  yet  each,  in  a  particular 
point  of  literary  art,  excels  his  superior  in  the  whole.  What 
is  that  point? 
2.    The  Web. — Literature,  although  it  stands  apart  by 


368  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

reason  of  the  great  destiny  and  general  use  of  its  medium  in 
the  affairs  of  men,  is  yet  an  art  like  other  arts.  Of  these  we 
may  distinguish  two  great  classes:  those  arts,  like  sculpture, 
painting,  acting,  which  are  representative,  or,  as  used  to  be 
said  very  clumsily,  imitative;  and  those,  hkc  architecture, 
music,  and  the  dance,  which  are  self-sufficient,  and  merely 
presentative/  Each  class,  in  right  of  this  distinction,  obeys 
principles  apart;  yet  both  may  claim  a  common  ground  of 
existence,  and  it  may  be  said  with  sufficient  justice  that  the 
motive  and  end  of  any  art  whatever  is  to  make  a  pattern;  a 
pattern,  it  may  be,  of  colors,  of  sounds,  of  changing  attitudes, 
geometrical  figures,  or  imitative  Hnes;  but  still  a  pattern. 
That  is  the  plane  on  which  these  sisters  meet ;  it  is  by  this  that 
they  are  arts;  and  if  it  be  well  they  should  at  times  forget 
their  childish  origin,  addressing  their  intelhgence  to  virile 
tasks,  and  performing  unconsciously  that  necessary  function 
of  their  hfe,  to  make  a  pattern,  it  is  still  imperative  that  the 
pattern  shall  be  made. 

Music  and  literature,  the  two  temporal  arts,  contrive  their 
pattern  of  sounds  in  time;  or,  in  other  words,  of  sounds  and 
pauses.  Communication  may  be  made  in  broken  words,  the 
business  of  life  be  carried  on  with  substantives  alone ;  but  that 
is  not  what  we  call  literature;  and  the  true  business  of  the 
literary  artist  is  to  plait  or  weave  his  meaning,  involving  it 
around  itself;  so  that  each  sentence,  by  successive  phrases, 
shall  first  come  into  a  kind  of  knot,  and  then,  after  a  moment 
of  suspended  meaning,  solve  and  clear  itself.  In  ever>'  prop- 
erly constructed  sentence  there  should  be  observed  this  knot 
or  hitch;  so  that  (however  delicately)  we  are  led  to  foresee,  to 
expect,  and  then  to  welcome  the  successive  phrases.  The 
pleasure  may  be  heightened  by  an  element  of  surprise,  as, 
very  grossly,  in  the  common  figure  of  the  antithesis,  or,  with 
much  greater  subtlety,  where  an  antithesis  is  first  suggested 


STEVENSOI^  369 

and  then  deftly  evaded.  Each  phrase,  besides,  is  to  be 
comely  in  itself;  and  between  the  implication  and  the  evo- 
lution of  the  sentence  there  should  be  a  satisfying  equipoise 
of  sound;  for  nothing  more  often  disappoints  the  ear  than  a 
sentence  solemnly  and  sonorously  prepared,  and  hastily  and 
weakly  finished.  Nor  should  the  balance  be  too  striking  and 
exact,  for  the  one  rule  is  to  be  infinitely  various;  to  interest, 
to  disappoint,  to  surprise,  and  yet  still  to  gratify;  to  be  ever 
changing,  as  it  were,  the  stitch,  and  yet  still  to  give  the  effect 
of  an  ingenious  neatness. 

The  conjuror  juggles  with  two  oranges,  and  our  pleasure  in 
beholding  him  springs  from  this,  that  neither  is  for  an  instant 
overlooked  or  sacrificed.  So  with  the  writer.  His  pattern, 
which  is  to  please  the  supersensual  ear,  is  yet  addressed, 
throughout  and  first  of  all,  to  the  demands  of  logic.  What- 
ever be  the  obscurities,  whatever  the  intricacies  of  the  argu- 
ment, the  neatness  of  the  fabric  must  not  suffer,  or  the  artist 
has  been  proved  unequal  to  his  design.  And,  on  the  other 
hand,  no  form  of  words  must  be  selected,  no  knot  must  be 
tied  among  the  phrases,  unless  knot  and  word  be  precisely 
what  is  wanted  to  forward  and  illuminate  the  argument; 
for  to  fail  in  this  is  to  swindle  in  the  game.  The  genius  of 
prose  rejects  the  cheville  no  less  emphatically  than  the  laws  of 
verse;  and  the  cheville,  I  should  perhaps  explain  to  some  of 
my  readers,  is  any  meaningless  or  very  watered  phrase  em- 
ployed to  strike  a  balance  in  the  sound.  Pattern  and  argu- 
ment live  in  each  other;  and  it  is  by  the  brevity,  clearness, 
charm,  or  emphasis  of  the  second,  that  we  judge  the  strength 
and  fitness  of  the  first. 

Style  is  synthetic ;  and  the  artist,  seeking,  so  to  speak,  a  peg 
to  plait  about,  takes  up  at  once  two  or  more  elements  or  two 
or  more  views  of  the  subject  in  hand;  combines,  implicates, 
and  contrasts  them;  and  while,  in  one  sense,  he  was  merely 

2B 


370  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

seeking  an  occasion  for  the  necessary  knot,  he  will  be  found, 
in  the  other,  to  have  greatly  enriched  the  meaning,  or  to  have 
transacted  the  work  of  two  sentences  in  the  space  of  one. 
In  the  change  from  the  successive  shallow  statements  of  the 
old  chronicler  to  the  dense  and  luminous  flow  of  highly 
synthetic  narrative,  there  is  implied  a  vast  amount  of  both 
philosophy  and  wit.  The  philosophy  we  clearly  see,  recog- 
nizing in  the  synthetic  writer  a  far  more  deep  and  stimulating 
view  of  hfe,  and  a  far  keener  sense  of  the  generation  and 
affinity  of  events.  The  wit  we  might  imagine  to  be  lost; 
but  it  is  not  so,  for  it  is  just  that  wit,  these  perpetual  nice 
contrivances,  these  difficulties  overcome,  this  double  purpose 
attained,  these  two  oranges  kept  simultaneously  dancing  in  the 
air,  that,  consciously  or  not,  afford  the  reader  his  delight. 
Nay,  and  this  wit,  so  Httle  recognized,  is  the  necessary  organ 
of  that  philosophy  which  we  so  much  admire.  That  style  is 
therefore  the  most  perfect,  not,  as  fools  say,  which  is  the  most 
natural,  for  the  most  natural  is  the  disjointed  babble  of  the 
chronicler;  but  which  attains  the  highest  degree  of  elegant 
and  pregnant  implication  unobtrusively;  or  if  obtrusively, 
then  with  the  greatest  gain  to  sense  and  vigor.  Even  the 
derangement  of  the  phrases  from  their  (so-called)  natural 
order  is  luminous  for  the  mind;  and  it  is  by  the  means  of  such 
designed  reversal  that  the  elements  of  a  judgment  may  be 
most  pertinently  marshalled,  or  the  stages  of  a  complicated 
action  most  perspicuously  bound  into  one. 

The  web,  then,  or  the  pattern :  a  web  at  once  sensuous  and 
logical,  an  elegant  and  pregnant  texture:  that  is  style,  that  is 
the  foundation  of  the  art  of  literature.  Books  indeed  continue 
to  be  read,  for  the  interest  of  the  fact  or  fable,  in  which  this 
quality  is  poorly  represented,  but  still  it  will  be  there.  And, 
on  the  other  hand,  how  many  do  we  continue  to  peruse  and 
reperuse  with  pleasure  whose  only  merit  is  the  elegance  of 


STEVENSON  37 1 

texture  ?  I  am  tempted  to  mention  Cicero ;  and  since  Mr. 
Anthony  TroUope  is  dead,  I  will.  It  is  a  poor  diet  for  the 
mind,  a  very  colorless  and  toothless  "  criticism  of  life  "; 
but  we  enjoy  the  pleasure  of  a  most  intricate  and  dexterous 
pattern,  every  stitch  a  model  at  once  of  elegance  and  of  good 
sense;  and  the  two  oranges,  even  if  one  of  them  be  rotten, 
kept  dancing  with  inimitable  grace. 

Up  to  this  moment  I  have  had  my  eye  mainly  upon  prose; 
for  though  in  verse  also  the  implication  of  the  logical  texture 
is  a  crowning  beauty,  yet  in  verse  it  may  be  dispensed  with. 
You  would  think  that  here  was  a  death-blow  to  all  I  have  been 
saying;  and  far  from  that,  it  is  but  a  new  illustration  of  the 
principle  involved.  For  if  the  versifier  is  not  bound  to  weave 
a  pattern  of  his  own,  it  is  because  another  pattern  has  been 
formally  imposed  upon  him  by  the  laws  of  verse.  For  that  is 
the  essence  of  a  prosody.  Verse  may  be  rhythmical;  it  may 
be  merely  alUterative;  it  may,  like  the  French,  depend  wholly 
on  the  (quasi)  regular  recurrence  of  the  rhyme;  or,  like  the 
Hebrew,  it  may  consist  in  the  strangely  fanciful  device  of 
repeating  the  same  idea.^  It  does  not  matter  on  what  prin- 
ciple the  law  is  based,  so  it  be  a  law.  It  may  be  pure  con- 
vention; it  may  have  no  inherent  beauty;  all  that  we  have 
a  right  to  ask  of  any  prosody  is,  that  it  shall  lay  down  a  pat- 
tern for  the  writer,  and  that  what  it  lays  down  shall  be  neither 
too  easy  nor  too  hard.  Hence  it  comes  that  it  is  much  easier 
for  men  of  equal  facility  to  write  fairly  pleasing  verse  than 
reasonably  interesting  prose;  for  in  prose  the  pattern  itself 
has  to  be  invented,  and  the  difficulties  first  created  before 
they  can  be  solved.  Hence,  again,  there  follows  the  peculiar 
greatness  of  the  true  versifier:  such  as  Shakespeare,  Milton, 
and  Victor  Hugo,  whom  I  place  beside  them  as  versifier 
merely,  not  as  poet.  These  not  only  knit  and  knot  the  logical 
texture  of  the  style  with  all  the  dexterity  and  strength  of  prose ; 


372  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

they  not  only  fill  up  the  pattern  of  the  verse  with  infinite 
variety  and  sober  wit;  but  they  give  us,  besides,  a  rare  and 
special  pleasure,  by  the  art,  comparable  to  that  of  counter- 
point, with  which  they  follow  at  the  same  time,  and  now 
contrast,  and  now  combine,  the  double  pattern  of  the  texture 
and  the  verse.  Here  the  sounding  line  concludes;  a  httle 
further  on,  the  well-knit  sentence;  and  yet  a  little  further, 
and  both  will  reach  their  solution  on  the  same  ringing  syllable. 
The  best  that  can  be  offered  by  the  best  writer  of  prose  is  to 
show  us  the  development  of  the  idea  and  the  stylistic  pattern 
proceed  hand  in  hand,  sometimes  by  an  obvious  and  trium- 
phant effort,  sometimes  with  a  great  air  of  ease  and  nature. 
The  writer  of  verse,  by  virtue  of  conquering  another  difficulty, 
dehghts  us  with  a  new  series  of  triumphs.  He  follows  three 
purposes  where  his  rival  followed  only  two;  and  the  change 
is  of  precisely  the  same  nature  as  that  from  melody  to  har- 
mony. Or  if  you  prefer  to  return  to  the  juggler,  behold  him 
now,  to  the  vastly  increased  enthusiasm  of  the  spectators, 
juggling  with  three  oranges  instead  of  two.  Thus  it  is:  added 
difficulty,  added  beauty;  and  the  pattern,  with  every  fresh 
element,  becoming  more  interesting  in  itself. 

Yet  it  must  not  be  thought  that  verse  is  simply  an  addition ; 
something  is  lost  as  well  as  something  gained;  and  there 
remains  plainly  traceable,  in  comparing  the  best  prose  with 
the  best  verse,  a  certain  broad  distinction  of  method  in  the 
web.  Tight  as  the  versifier  may  draw  the  knot  of  logic,  yet 
for  the  ear  he  still  leaves  the  tissue  of  the  sentence  floating 
somewhat  loose.  In  prose,  the  sentence  turns  upon  a  pivot, 
nicely  balanced,  and  fits  into  itself  with  an  obtrusive  neatness 
like  a  puzzle.  The  ear  remarks  and  is  singly  gratified  by 
this  return  and  balance;  while  in  verse  it  is  all  diverted  to  the 
measure.  To  find  comparable  passages  is  hard;  for  either 
the  versifier  is  hugely  the  superior  of  the  rival,  or,  if  he  be  not 


STEVENSON  373 

and  still  persist  in  his  more  delicate  enterprise,  he  falls  to  be 
as  widely  his  inferior.  But  let  us  select  them  from  the  pages 
of  the  same  writer,  one  who  was  ambidexter;  let  us  take, 
for  instance.  Rumour's  Prologue  to  the  Second  Part  of  Henry 
IV,  a,  fine  flourish  of  eloquence  in  Shakespeare's  second  man- 
ner, and  set  it  side  by  side  with  Falstaff's  praise  of  sherris, 
act  iv,  scene  i ;  or  let  us  compare  the  beautiful  prose  spoken 
throughout  by  Rosalind  and  Orlando,  compare,  for  example, 
the  first  speech  of  all,  Orlando's  speech  to  Adam,  with  what 
passage  it  shall  please  you  to  select  —  the  Seven  Ages  from 
the  same  play,  or  even  such  a  stave  of  nobility  as  Othello's 
farewell  to  war;  and  still  you  will  be  able  to  perceive,  if  you 
have  an  ear  for  that  class  of  music,  a  certain  superior  degree 
of  organization  in  the  prose;  a  compacter  fitting  of  the  parts; 
a  balance  in  the  swing  and  the  return  as  of  a  throbbing 
pendulum.  We  must  not,  in  things  temporal,  take  from 
those  who  have  little,  the  little  that  they  have;  the  merits  of 
prose  are  inferior,  but  they  are  not  the  same;  it  is  a  httle 
kingdom,  but  an  independent. 

3.  Rhythm  0}  the  Phrase.  —  Some  way  back,  I  used  a  word 
which  still  awaits  an  apphcation.  Each  phrase,  I  said,  was 
to  be  comely;  but  what  is  a  comely  phrase?  In  all  ideal  and 
material  points,  literature,  being  a  representative  art,  must 
look  for  analogies  to  painting  and  the  like;  but  in  what  is 
technical  and  executive,  being  a  temporal  art,  it  must  seek 
for  them  in  music.  Each  phrase  of  each  sentence,  like  an 
air  or  a  recitative  in  music,  should  be  so  artfully  compounded 
out  of  long  and  short,  out  of  accented  and  unaccented,  as 
to  gratify  the  sensual  ear.  And  of  this  the  ear  is  the  sole 
judge.  It  is  impossible  to  lay  down  laws.  Even  in  our  ac- 
centual and  rhythmic  language  no  analysis  can  find  the  secret 
of  the  beauty  of  a  verse;  how  much  less,  then,  of  those  phrases, 
such  as  prose  is  built  of,  which  obey  no  law  but  to  be  lawless 


374  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

and  yet  to  please?^  The  little  that  we  know  of  verse  (and  for 
my  part  I  owe  it  all  to  my  friend  Professor  Fleeming  Jenkin) 
is,  however,  particularly  interesting  in  the  present  connection. 
We  have  been  accustomed  to  describe  the  heroic  line  as 
five  iambic  feet,  and  to  be  filled  with  pain  and  confusion 
whenever,  as  by  the  conscientious  schoolboy,  we  have  heard 
our  own  description  put  in  practice. 

"All  night  I  the    dread  |  less    an  |  gel  un  |  pursued,"* 

goes  the  schoolboy ;  but  though  we  close  our  ears,  we  cling  to 
our  definition,  in  spite  of  its  proved  and  naked  insufficiency. 
Mr.  Jenkin  was  not  so  easily  pleased,  and  readily  discovered 
that  the  heroic  line  consists  of  four  groups,  or,  if  you  prefer 
the  phrase,  contains  four  pauses: 

"  All  night  I  the  dreadless  |  angel  |  unpursued." 

Four  groups,  each  practically  uttered  as  one  word :  the  first, 
in  this  case,  an  iamb;  the  second,  an  amphibrachys;  the 
third,  a  trochee;  and  the  fourth  an  amphimacer;  and  yet  our 
schoolboy,  with  no  other  liberty  but  that  of  inflicting  pain, 
had  triumphantly  scanned  it  as  five  iambs.  Perceive,  now, 
this  fresh  richness  of  intricacy  in  the  web ;  this  fourth  orange, 
hitherto  unremarked,  but  still  kept  flying  with  the  others. 
What  had  seemed  to  be  one  thing  it  now  appears  is  two;  and, 
like  some  puzzle  in  arithmetic,  the  verse  is  made  at  the  same 
time  to  read  in  fives  and  to  read  in  fours. 

But  again,  four  is  not  necessary.  We  do  not,  indeed,  find 
verses  in  six  groups,  because  there  is  not  room  for  six  in  the 
ten  syllables;  and  we  do  not  find  verses  of  two,  because  one 
of  the  main  distinctions  of  verse  from  prose  resides  in  the 
comparative  shortness  of  the  group;  but  it  is  even  common 
to  find  verses  of  three.  Five  is  the  one  forbidden  number; 
because  five  is  the  number  of  the  feet ;  and  if  five  were  chosen, 

*  Milton. 


STEVENSON  375 

the  two  patterns  would  coincide,  and  that  opposition  which 
is  the  hfe  of  verse  would  instantly  be  lost.  We  have  here  a 
clue  to  the  effect  of  polysyllables,  above  all  in  Latin,  where 
they  are  so  common  and  make  so  brave  an  architecture  in 
the  verse;  for  the  polysyllable  is  a  group  of  Nature's  making. 
If  but  some  Roman  would  return  from  Hades  (Martial,  for 
choice),  and  tell  me  by  what  conduct  of  the  voice  these  thun- 
dering verses  should  be  uttered  — "  Aut  Lacedamonium 
Tarentum,"  for  a  case  in  point  —  I  feel  as  if  I  should  enter 
at  last  into  the  full  enjoyment  of  the  best  of  human  verses. 
But,  again,  the  five  feet  are  all  iambic,  or  supposed  to  be;  by 
the  mere  count  of  syllables  the  four  groups  cannot  be  all  iam- 
bic; as  a  question  of  elegance,  I  doubt  if  any  one  of  them  re- 
quires to  be  so ;  and  I  am  certain  that  for  choice  no  two  of  them 
should  scan  the  same.  The  singular  beauty  of  the  verse 
analyzed  above  is  due,  so  far  as  analysis  can  carry  us,  part, 
indeed,  to  the  clever  repetition  of  l,  d,  and  n,  but  part  to  this 
variety  of  scansion  in  the  groups.  The  groups  which,  Hke 
the  bar  in  music,  break  up  the  verse  for  utterance,  fall  un- 
iambically;  and  in  declaiming  a  so-called  iambic  verse, 
it  may  so  happen  that  we  never  utter  one  iambic  foot.  And 
yet  to  this  neglect  of  the  original  beat  there  is  a  limit. 

"Athens,  the  eye  of  Greece,  mother  of  arts,"* 

is,  with  all  its  eccentricities,  a  good  heroic  line;  for  though  it 

scarcely  can   be  said  to  indicate  the  beat  of  the  iamb,  it 

certainly  suggests  no  other  measure  to  the  ear.     But  begin 

"Mother  Athens,  eye  of  Greece," 

or  merely  "Mother  Athens,"  and  the  game  is  up,  for  the 
trochaic  beat  has  been  suggested.  The  eccentric  scansion 
of  the  groups  is  an  adornment;  but  as  soon  as  the  original 
beat  has  been  forgotten,  they  cease  implicitly  to  be  eccentric. 

*  Milton. 


3/6  THEORIES   OE  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Variety  is  what  is  sought;  but  if  we  destroy  the  original  mould, 
one  of  the  terms  of  this  variety  is  lost,  and  we  fall  back  on 
sameness.  Thus,  both  as  to  the  arithmetical  measure  of  the 
verse,  and  the  degree  of  regularity  in  scansion,  we  see  the 
laws  of  prosody  to  have  one  common  purpose :  to  keep  alive 
the  opposition  of  two  schemes  simultaneously  followed; 
to  keep  them  notably  apart,  though  still  coincident ;  and  to 
balance  them  with  such  judicial  nicety  before  the  reader,  that 
neither  shall  be  unperceived  and  neither  signally  prevail. 

The  rule  of  rhythm  in  prose  is  not  so  intricate.  Here,  too, 
we  write  in  groups,  or  phrases,  as  I  prefer  to  call  them,  for 
the  prose  phrase  is  greatly  longer  and  is  much  more  non- 
chalantly uttered  than  the  group  in  verse;  so  that  not  only 
is  there  a  greater  interval  of  continuous  sound  between  the 
pauses,  but,  for  that  very  reason,  word  is  linked  more  readily 
to  word  by  a  more  summary  enunciation.  Still,  the  phrase 
is  the  strict  analogue  of  the  group,  and  successive  phrases, 
like  successive  groups,  must  differ  openly  in  length  and 
rhythm.  The  rule  of  scansion  in  verse  is  to  suggest  no  meas- 
ure but  the  one  in  hand ;  in  prose,  to  suggest  no  measure  at  all. 
Prose  must  be  rhythmical,  and  it  may  be  as  much  so  as  you 
will ;  but  it  must  not  be  metrical.  It  may  be  anything,  but  it 
must  not  be  verse.  A  single  heroic  line  may  very  well  pass  and 
not  disturb  the  somewhat  larger  stride  of  the  prose  style;  but 
one  following  another  will  produce  an  instant  impression 
of  poverty,  flatness,  and  disenchantment.  The  same  hncs 
delivered  with  the  measured  utterance  of  verse,  would  perhaps 
seem  rich  in  variety.  By  the  more  summary  enunciation 
proper  to  prose,  as  to  a  more  distant  vision,  these  niceties  of 
difference  are  lost.  A  whole  verse  is  uttered  as  one  phrase; 
and  the  ear  is  soon  wearied  by  a  succession  of  groups  iden- 
tical in  length.  The  prose  writer,  in  fact,  since  he  is  allowed 
to  be  so  much  less  harmonious,  is  condemned  to  a  perpetually 


STEVENSON  ^yy 

fresh  variety  of  movement  on  a  larger  scale,  and  must  never 
disappoint  the  car  by  the  trot  of  an  accepted  metre.  And 
this  obhgation  is  the  third  orange  with  which  he  has  to  juggle, 
the  third  quaHty  which  the  prose  writer  must  work  into  his 
pattern  of  words.  It  may  be  thought  perhaps  that  this  is  a 
quality  of  ease  rather  than  a  fresh  difficulty;  but  such  is  the 
inherently  rhythmical  strain  of  the  English  language,  that 
the  bad  writer  —  and  must  I  take  for  example  that  admired 
friend  of  my  boyhood,  Captain  Reid  ?  —  the  inexperienced 
writer,  as  Dickens  in  his  earher  attempts  to  be  impressive,  and 
the  jaded  writer,  as  any  one  may  see  for  himself,  all  tend  to 
fall  at  once  into  the  production  of  bad  blank  verse.  And 
here  it  may  be  pertinently  asked.  Why  bad  ?  And  I  suppose 
it  might  be  enough  to  answer  that  no  man  ever  made  good 
verse  by  accident,  and  that  no  verse  can  ever  sound  otherwise 
than  trivial  when  uttered  with  the  delivery  of  prose.  But 
we  can  go  beyond  such  answers.  The  weak  side  of  verse 
is  the  regularity  of  the  beat,  which  in  itself  is  decidedly  less 
impressive  than  the  movement  of  the  nobler  prose;  and  it  is 
just  into  this  weak  side,  and  this  alone,  that  our  careless 
writer  falls.  A  pecuhar  density  and  mass,  consequent  on 
the  nearness  of  the  pauses,  is  one  of  the  chief  good  qualities 
of  verse;  but  this  our  accidental  versifier,  still  following  after 
the  swift  gait  and  large  gestures  of  prose,  does  not  so  much 
as  aspire  to  imitate.  Lastly,  since  he  remains  unconscious 
that  he  is  making  verse  at  all,  it  can  never  occur  to  him  to 
extract  those  effects  of  counterpoint  and  opposition  which 
I  have  referred  to  as  the  final  grace  and  justification  of  verse, 
and,  I  may  add,  of  blank  verse  in  particular. 

4.  Contents  0}  the  Phrase.  —  Here  is  a  great  deal  of  talk 
about  rhythm  —  and  naturally ;  for  in  our  canorous  language 
rhythm  is  always  at  the  door.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that 
in  some  languages  this  element  is  ahnost,  if  not  quite,  extinct, 


378  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  that  in  our  own  it  is  probably  decaying.  The  even  speech 
of  many  educated  Americans  sounds  the  note  of  danger. 
I  should  see  it  go  with  something  as  bitter  as  despair,  but  I 
should  not  be  desperate.  As  in  verse,  no  element,  not  even 
rhythm,  is  necessary;  so,  in  prose  also,  other  sorts  of  beauty 
will  arise  and  take  the  place  and  play  the  part  of  those  that  we 
outlive.  The  beauty  of  the  expected  beat  in  verse,  the  beauty 
in  prose  of  its  larger  and  more  lawless  melody,  patent  as  they 
are  to  English  hearing,  are  already  silent  in  the  ears  of  our 
next  neighbors;  for  in  France  the  oratorical  accent  and  the 
pattern  of  the  web  have  almost  or  altogether  succeeded  to 
their  places;  and  the  French  prose  writer  would  be  astounded 
at  the  labors  of  his  brother  across  the  Channel,  and  how  a 
good  quarter  of  his  toil,  above  all  invita  Minerva,  is  to  avoid 
writing  verse.  So  wonderfully  far  apart  have  races  wandered 
in  spirit,  and  so  hard  it  is  to  understand  the  literature  next 
door ! 

Yet  French  prose  is  distinctly  better  than  English;  and 
French  verse,  above  all  while  Hugo  lives,  it  will  not  do  to  place 
upon  one  side.  What  is  more  to  our  purpose,  a  phrase  or  a 
verse  in  French  is  easily  distinguishable  as  comely  or  un- 
comely. There  is  then  another  clement  of  comeliness  hither- 
to overlooked  in  this  analysis:  the  contents  of  the  phrase. 
Each  phrase  in  literature  is  built  of  sounds,  as  each  phrase 
in  music  consists  of  notes.  One  sound  suggests,  echoes,  de- 
mands, and  harmonizes  with  another;  and  the  art  of  rightly 
using  these  concordances  is  the  final  art  in  hterature.  It  used 
to  be  a  piece  of  good  advice  to  all  young  writers  to  avoid 
alliteration;  and  the  advice  was  sound,  in  so  far  as  it  pre- 
vented daubing.  None  the  less  for  that,  was  it  abominable 
nonsense,  and  the  mere  raving  of  those  bhndest  of  the  Wind 
who  will  not  see.  The  beauty  of  the  contents  of  a  phrase, 
or  of  a  sentence,  depends  imphcitly  upon  aUiteration  and 


STEVENSON  379 

upon  assonance.  The  vowel  demands  to  be  repeated;  the 
consonant  demands  to  be  repeated;  and  both  cry  aloud  to  be 
perpetually  varied.  You  may  follow  the  adventures  of  a 
letter  through  any  passage  that  has  particularly  pleased  you; 
find  it,  perhaps,  denied  awhile,  to  tantalize  the  ear;  find 
it  fired  again  at  you  in  a  whole  broadside ;  or  find  it  pass  into 
congenerous  sounds,  one  liquid  or  labial  melting  away  into 
another.  And  you  will  find  another  and  much  stranger  cir- 
cumstance. Literature  is  written  by  and  for  two  senses: 
a  sort  of  internal  ear,  quick  to  perceive  "  unheard  melodies  "  ; 
and  the  eye,  w^hich  directs  the  pen  and  deciphers  the  printed 
phrase.  "Well,  even  as  there  are  rhymes  for  the  eye,  so  you 
will  find  that  there  are  assonances  and  aUiterations ;  that 
where  an  author  is  running  the  open  a,  deceived  by  the  eye 
and  our  strange  English  spelling,  he  will  often  show  a  tender- 
ness for  the  flat  a  ;  and  that  where  he  is  running  a  particular 
consonant,  he  will  not  improbably  rejoice  to  write  it  down  even 
when  it  is  mute  or  bears  a  different  value. 

Here,  then,  we  have  a  fresh  pattern  —  a  pattern,  to  speak 
grossly,  of  letters  —  which  makes  the  fourth  preoccupation 
of  the  prose  writer,  and  the  fifth  of  the  versifier.  At  times 
it  is  very  delicate  and  hard  to  perceive,  and  then  perhaps  most 
excellent  and  winning  (I  say  perhaps);  but  at  times  again 
the  elements  of  this  literal  melody  stand  more  boldly  forward 
and  usurp  the  ear.  It  becomes,  therefore,  somewhat  a  matter 
of  conscience  to  select  examples;  and  as  I  cannot  very  well 
ask  the  reader  to  help  me,  I  shall  do  the  next  best  by  giving 
him  the  reason  or  the  history  of  each  selection.  The  two 
first,  one  in  prose,  one  in  verse,  I  chose  without  previous 
analysis,  simply  as  engaging  passages  that  had  long  reechoed 
in  my  ear. 

"  I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue,  un- 
exercised and  unbreathed,  that  never  sallies  out  and  sees  her 


380  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

adversary,  but  slinks  out  of  the  race  where  that  immortal 
garland  is  to  be  run  for,  not  without  dust  and  heat."  *  Down 
to  "  virtue,"  the  current  s  and  r  are  both  announced  and  re- 
peated unobtrusively,  and  by  way  of  a  grace-note  that  al- 
most inseparable  group  pvf  is  given  entire. f  The  next 
phrase  is  a  period  of  repose,  almost  ugly  in  itself,  both  s  and  r 
still  audible,  and  b  given  as  the  last  fulfilment  of  pvf.  In 
the  next  four  phrases,  from  "  that  never  "  down  to  "  run 
for,"  the  mask  is  thrown  off,  and,  but  for  a  slight  repetition  of 
the  F  and  v,  the  whole  matter  turns,  almost  too  obtrusively, 
on  s  and  R;  first  s  coming  to  the  front,  and  then  r.  In  the 
concluding  phrase  all  these  favorite  letters,  and  even  the 
flat  A,  a  timid  preference  for  which  is  just  perceptible,  are 
discarded  at  a  blow  and  in  a  bundle;  and  to  make  the  break 
more  obvious,  every  word  ends  with  a  dental,  and  all  but 
one  with  t,  for  which  we  have  been  cautiously  prepared  since 
the  beginning.  The  singular  dignity  of  the  first  clause,  and 
this  hammer-stroke  of  the  last,  go  far  to  make  the  charm  of 
this  exquisite  sentence.  But  it  is  fair  to  own  that  s  and  R 
are  used  a  little  coarsely. 

"  In  Xanadu  did  Kubla  Khan  (kandl) 

A  stately  pleasure-dome  decree,  (kdlsr) 

Where  Alph,  the  sacred  river,  ran,  (kandlsr) 

Through  caverns  measureless  to  man  (kanlsr) 

Down  to  a  sunless  sea."  J  (ndls) 

Here  I  have  put  the  analysis  of  the  main  group  alongside  the 
lines;  and  the  more  it  is  looked  at,  the  more  interesting  it  will 
seem.     But  there  are  further  niceties.     In  Hnes  two  and  four, 

*  Milton. 

t  As  PVF  will  continue  to  haunt  us  through  our  English  examples,  take, 
by  way  of  comparison,  this  Latin  verse,  of  which  it  forms  a  chief  adornment, 
and  do  not  hold  me  answerable  for  the  all  too  Roman  freedom  of  the  sense: 
"Hanc  volo,  quae  facilis,  quae  palliolata  vagatur." 

X  Coleridge. 


STEVENSON  38 1 

the  current  s  is  most  delicately  varied  with  z.  In  line  three, 
the  current  flat  a  is  twice  varied  with  the  open  a,  already  sug- 
gested in  line  two,  and  both  times  (''  where  "  and  "  sacred  ") 
in  conjunction  with  the  current  R.  In  the  same  line  f  and  V 
(a  harmony  in  themselves,  even  when  shorn  of  their  comrade 
p)  are  admirably  contrasted.  And  in  hne  four  there  is  a 
marked  subsidiary  m,  which  again  was  announced  in  line 
two.     I  stop  from  weariness,  for  more  might  yet  be  said. 

My  next  example  was  recently  quoted  from  Shakespeare 
as  an  example  of  the  poet's  color  sense.  Now,  I  do  not  think 
literature  has  anything  to  do  with  color,  or  poets  any  way 
the  better  of  such  a  sense;  and  I  instantly  attacked  this  pas- 
sage, since  "  purple  "  was  the  word  that  had  so  pleased  the 
writer  of  the  article,  to  see  if  there  might  not  be  some  literary 
reason  for  its  use.  It  will  be  seen  that  I  succeeded  amply; 
and  I  am  bound  to  say  I  think  the  passage  exceptional  in 
Shakespeare  —  exceptional,  indeed,  in  literature;  but  it 
was  not  I  who  chose  it. 

"  The  BaRge  she  sat  In,  hke  a  BURNished  throNe 
BuRNt  ON  the  water:  the  poop  was  BeateN  gold, 
PuRPle  the  sails  and  so  PUR*Fumed  that 
The  wiNds  were  love-sick  with  them."  f 

It  may  be  asked  why  I  have  put  the  f  of  "perfumM"  in  cap- 
itals ;  and  I  reply,  because  this  change  from  p  to  f  is  the  com- 
pletion of  that  from  b  to  p,  already  so  adroitly  carried  out. 
Indeed,  the  whole  passage  is  a  monument  of  curious  inge- 
nuity; and  it  seems  scarce  worth  while  to  indicate  the  subsid- 
iary s,  L,  and  w.  In  the  same  article,  a  second  passage  from 
Shakespeare  was  quoted,  once  again  as  an  example  of  his 
color  sense: 

"  A  mole  cinque -spotted  like  the  crimson  drops 
I'  the  bottom  of  a  cowslip."  % 

*  per  f  Antony  and  Cleopatra.  %  Cymbeline. 


382  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

It  is  very  curious,  very  artificial,  and  not  worth  while  to  analyze 
at  length:  I  leave  it  to  the  reader.  But  before  I  turn  my  back 
on  Shakespeare,  I  should  like  to  quote  a  passage,  for  my  own 
pleasure,  and  for  a  very  model  of  every  technical  art : 

"  But,  in  the  wind  and  tempest  of  her  frown,  w.  p.  v.  F.  (st)  (ow)  * 

Distinction,  with  a  loud  and  powerful  fan,  w.  p.  f.  (st)  (ow)  L 

Puffing  at  all,  winnows  the  light  away;  w.  p.  f.  l 

And  what  hath  mass  or  matter,  by  itself  w.  f.  l.  m.  a 

Lies  rich  in  virtue  and  unmingled."t  v.  l.  m 

From  these  delicate  and  choice  writers  I  turned  with  some 
curiosity  to  a  player  of  the  big  drum  — Macaulay.  I  had  in 
hand  the  two-volume  edition,  and  I  opened  at  the  beginning 
of  the  second  volume.     Here  was  what  I  read: 

"The  violence  of  revolutions  is  generally  proportioned  to 
the  degree  of  the  maladministration  which  has  produced  them. 
It  is  therefore  not  strange  that  the  government  of  Scotland, 
having  been  during  many  years  greatly  more  corrupt  than 
the  government  of  England,  should  have  fallen  with  a  far 
heavier  ruin.  The  movement  against  the  last  king  of  the 
house  of  Stuart  was  in  England  conservative,  in  Scotland 
destructive.  The  Enghsh  complained  not  of  the  law,  but  of 
the  violation  of  the  law." 

This  was  plain- sailing  enough;  it  was  our  old  friend  pvf, 
floated  by  the  liquids  in  a  body;  but  as  I  read  on,  and  turned 
the  page,  and  still  found  pvf  with  his  attendant  liquids,  I 
confess  my  mind  misgave  me  utterly.  This  could  be  no  trick 
of  Macaulay's;  it  must  be  the  nature  of  the  English  tongue. 
In  a  kind  of  despair,  I  turned  half-way  through  the  volume; 
and  coming  upon  his  lordship  dealing  with  General  Cannon, 
and  fresh  from  Claverhouse  and  Killiecrankie,  here,  with 
elucidative  spelling,  was  my  reward: 

"Meanwhile  the  disorders  of  Kannon's  Kamp  went  on  inKreasing. 
He  Railed  a  Kouncil  of  war  to  Konsider  what  Kourse  it  would  be  ad- 

*  The  v  is  in  "  of."  f  Troilus  and  Cressida- 


STEVENSON  383 

visable  to  taKe.  But  as  soon  as  the  Kouncil  had  met,  a  preliminary 
Kuestion  was  raised.  The  army  was  almost  eKSKlusively  a  Highland 
army.  The  recent  viKtory  had  been  won  eKSKlusively  by  Highland 
warriors.  Great  chie/s  who  had  brought  sIks  or  sez'en  hundred  /ight- 
ing  men  into  the  /ield  did  not  think  it  /air  that  they  should  be  outi^oted 
by  gentlemen  /rom  Ireland,  and  /rom  the  Low  Kountries,  who  bore 
indeed  King  James's  Kommission,  and  were  Railed  Kolonels  and  Kap- 
tains,  but  who  were  Kolonels  without  regiments  and  Kaptains  without 
Kompanies." 

A  moment  of  fv  in  all  this  world  of  k's  !  It  was  not  the  Eng- 
lish language,  then,  that  was  an  instrument  of  one  string, 
but  Macaulay  that  was  an  incomparable  dauber. 

It  was  probably  from  this  barbaric  love  of  repeating  the 
same  sound,  rather  than  from  any  design  of  clearness,  that 
he  acquired  his  irritating  habit  of  repeating  words ;  I  say 
the  one  rather  than  the  other,  because  such  a  trick  of  the 
ear  is  deeper-seated  and  more  original  in  man  than  any 
logical  consideration/  Few  writers,  indeed,  are  probably 
conscious  of  the  length  to  which  they  push  this  melody  of 
letters.  One,  writing  very  diligently,  and  only  concerned 
about  the  meaning  of  his  words  and  the  rhythm  of  his  phrases, 
was  struck  into  amazement  by  the  eager  triumph  with  which 
he  cancelled  one  expression  to  substitute  another.  Neither 
changed  the  sense;  both  being  monosyllables,  neither  could 
affect  the  scansion;  and  it  was  only  by  looking  back  on  what 
he  had  already  written  that  the  mystery  was  solved:  the 
second  word  contained  an  open  a,  and  for  nearly  half  a  page 
he  had  been  riding  that  vowel  to  the  death. 

In  practice,  I  should  add,  the  ear  is  not  always  so  exacting; 
and  ordinary  writers,  in  ordinary  moments,  content  them- 
selves with  avoiding  what  is  harsh,  and  here  and  there,  upon 
a  rare  occasion,  buttressing  a  phrase,  or  linking  two  together, 
with  a  patch  of  assonance  or  a  momentary  jingle  of  alliteration. 
To  understand  how  constant  is  this  preoccupation  of  good 


384  THEORIES  OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

writers,  even  where  its  results  are  least  obtrusive,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  turn  to  the  bad.  There,  indeed,  you  will  find 
cacophony  supreme,  the  rattle  of  incongruous  consonants 
only  reheved  by  the  jaw-breaking  hiatus,  and  whole  phrases 
not  to  be  articulated  by  the  powers  of  man. 

Conclusion.  —  We  may  now  briefly  enumerate  the  ele- 
ments  of  style.  We  have,  pecuHar  to  the  prose  writer,  the 
task  of  keeping  his  phrases  large,  rhythmical,  and  pleasing 
to  the  ear,  without  ever  allowing  them  to  fall  into  the  strictly 
metrical:  peculiar  to  the  versifier,  the  task  of  combining  and 
contrasting  his  double,  treble,  and  quadruple  pattern,  feet  and 
groups,  logic  and  metre  —  harmonious  in  diversity:  common 
to  both,  the  task  of  artfully  combining  the  prime  elements  of 
language  into  phrases  that  shall  be  musical  in  the  mouth ;  the 
task  of  weaving  their  argument  into  a  texture  of  committed 
phrases  and  of  rounded  periods  —  but  this  particularly 
binding  in  the  case  of  prose :  and,  again  common  to  both,  the 
task  of  choosing  apt,  explicit,  and  communicative  words. 
We  begin  to  see  now  what  an  intricate  affair  is  any  perfect 
passage ;  how  many  faculties,  whether  of  taste  or  pure  reason, 
must  be  held  upon  the  stretch  to  make  it ;  and  why,  when  it 
is  made,  it  should  afford  us  so  complete  a  pleasure.  From 
the  arrangement  of  according  letters,  which  is  altogether 
arabesque  and  sensual,^  up  to  the  architecture  of  the  elegant 
and  pregnant  sentence,  which  is  a  vigorous  act  of  the  pure 
intellect,  there  is  scarce  a  faculty  in  man  but  has  been  exer- 
cised. We  need  not  wonder,  then,  if  perfect  sentences  are 
rare,  and  perfect  pages  rarer. 


STEVENSON 


385 


•  In  the  Contemporary  Stevenson  at  this  point  appends  the  following  note: 
The  division  of  the  arts  may  best  be  shown  in  a  tabular  form,  thus: 


Presentative 


In  time. 
.  Music 


Representative  .  .  Literature 


In  space. 
Painting 

Sculpture,  &c. 
Architecture 


In  time  and  space. 
Dance 


Acting 


'  A  traditional  belief,  half  erroneous,  for  which  Stevenson  should  not  be 
held  responsible.  Recent  scholars  are  pretty  much  agreed  upon  the  exist- 
ence of  a  metrical  form  in  Old  Testament  poetry;  see  the  Athettceunt,  July 
29,  1905  (p.  140);  Nation,  Aug.  3,  1905  (p.  107);  Jewish  Encyclopedia, 
under  Meter  and  Poetry.  Compare  also  Sidney,  Defense  of  Poesy,  ed.  Albert 
S.  Cook,  p.  6. 

^  But  see  F.  N.  Scott,  Tlie  Scansion  of  Prose  Rhythm,  Publications  oj  the 
Modern  Language  Association  of  America,  Vol.  20,  pp.  707—728;  and  com- 
pare E.  Sievers,  Ueher  Sprachmelodisches  in  der  deutschen  Dichtung,  Anna- 
len  der  Naturphilosophie,  Vol.  i,  pp.  76-94. 

*  Compare  Wackemagel,  above,  p.  6. 

'"Sensual"  :  Stevenson  evidently  intended  this  word,  though  not  in  its 
ordinary  meaning;  we  should  expect  sensttous. 


90 


386  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

XVI 

WALTER   PATER  (1839-1894) 
Style  (1888) 

[From  Appreciations,  With  an  Essay  on  Style,  New  York  (Macmillan), 
1905  (pp.  1-36). 

Pater  first  published  his  essay  as  a  separate  article,  in 
the  Fortnightly  Review  for  December  i,  1888  (Old  Series, 
Vol.  50,  pp.  728-743),  whence  it  was  copied  by  Living  Age  for 
January,  1889  (Vol.  180,  pp.  3-13).  In  the  latter  year, 
after  a  characteristic  revision  of  the  wording,  the  author 
issued  it  again  as  an  introduction  to  his  "  Appreciations  "  of 
Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Lamb,  etc.  These  appreciations, 
however,  are  general  hterary  estimates;  they  are  not  in  any 
ordinary  sense  studies  in  style. 

On  its  appearance  in  that  volume,  the  introductory  essay, 
though  it  has  since  won  an  abiding  station  in  the  literature 
of  criticism,  was  not  everywhere  received  with  immediate 
favor.  For  example,  Mr.  William  Watson,  reviewing  the 
volume  for  the  London  Academy  (Dec.  21,  1889),  delivered 
himself  without  enthusiasm:  — 

"The  opening  paper,  on  'Style'  —  in  reahty concerning 
itself  rather  with  diction,  or  with  artifices  of  prose  composi- 
tion, than  with  that  abstract  effect,  that  air  and  carriage, 
which  the  word  '  style '  has  almost  insensibly  come  to  stand  for 
—  is  perhaps  for  this  reason  a  Httle  disappointing." 

Other  contemporary  criticisms  may  be  consulted  in  the 
Athenaeum  for  December  14,  1889  (1889,  Vol.  2,  pp.  813-814), 
and  the  Nation  for  December  26,  1889  (Vol.  49,  p.  524). 
For  good  reasons,  a  safer  and  less  disappointed  valuation  than 
Mr.  Watson's  has  been  offered  later  by  Professors  Gayley 
and  Scott,  who  characterize  the  essay  thus  {Literary  Criti- 
cism, 1899,  p.  225):  — 

"  Structural  unity  pervading  all  the  elements  of  composi- 
tion, from  the  largest  to  the  smallest,  is  the  requirement  upon 
which  the  author  most  strenuously  insists." 


PATER  387 

Pater's  strenuous  insistence  on  stylistic  unity  is  illustrated 
in  his  own  practice,  where  his  success  was  bought  at  the  ex- 
pense of  slow  and  unremitting  toil.  The  personal  significance 
of  his  remarks  on  Flaubert's  "tardy  and  painful  "  labor  in 
composition  is  obvious.  (Compare  M.  Faguet's  spirited 
account  of  Flaubert  Ecrivain:  E.  Faguet,  -F/aM^^r/,  Chap.  X.) 
For  a  partial  insight  into  Pater's  way  of  working,  study  the 
first  two  sentences  of  the  article  in  the  Fortnightly^  and  then 
the  same  two  sentences,  as  revised,  in  the  essay  below. 
In  the  Fortnightly  they  run:  — 

"  Since  all  progress  of  mind  consists  for  the  most  part  in 
differentiation,  in  the  severance  of  an  obscure  complex  into 
its  parts  or  phases,  it  is  surely  the  stupidest  of  losses  to  wear 
off  the  edge  of  achieved  distinctions,  and  confuse  things  which 
right  reason  has  put  asunder  —  poetry  and  prose,  for  instance; 
or,  to  speak  more  exactly,  the  characteristic  laws  and  ex- 
cellences of  prose  and  verse  composition.  On  the  other 
hand,  those  who  have  dwelt  most  emphatically  on  the  distinc- 
tion between  prose  and  verse,  prose  and  poetry,  may  some- 
times have  been  tempted  to  hmit  the  proper  functions  of 
prose  too  narrowly;  which  again  is  at  least  false  economy, 
as  being,  in  effect,  the  renunciation  of  a  certain  means  or 
faculty,  in  a  world  where  after  all  we  must  needs  make  the 
most  of  things."] 

Since  all  progress  of  mind  consists  for  the  most  part  in  dif- 
ferentiation, in  the  resolution  of  an  obscure  and  complex 
object  into  its  component  aspects,  it  is  surely  the  stupidest  of 
losses  to  confuse  things  which  right  reason  has  put  asunder, 
to  lose  the  sense  of  achieved  distinctions,  the  distinction 
between  poetry  and  prose,  for  instance,  or,  to  speak  more  ex- 
actly, between  the  laws  and  characteristic  excellences  of  verse 
and  prose  composition.  On  the  other  hand,  those  who  have 
dwelt  most  emphatically  on  the  distinction  between  prose  and 
verse,  prose  and  poetry,  may  sometimes  have  been  tempted 
to  limit  the  proper  functions  of  prose  too  narrowly;  and  this 
again  is  at  least  false  economy,  as  being,  in  effect,  the  renun- 


388  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

ciation  of  a  certain  means  or  faculty,  in  a  world  where  after 
all  we  must  needs  make  the  most  of  things.  Critical  efforts 
to  limit  art  a  priori,  by  anticipations  regarding  the  natural 
incapacity  of  the  material  with  which  this  or  that  artist  works, 
as  the  sculptor  with  soHd  form,  or  the  prose-writer  with  the 
ordinary  language  of  men,  are  always  liable  to  be  discredited 
by  the  facts  of  artistic  production ;  and  while  prose  is  actually 
found  to  be  a  colored  thing  with  Bacon,  picturesque  with  Livy 
and  Carlyle,  musical  with  Cicero  and  Newman,  mystical  and 
intimate  with  Plato  and  Michelet  and  Sir  Thomas  Browne, 
exalted  or  florid,  it  may  be,  with  Milton  and  Taylor,  it  will 
be  useless  to  protest  that  it  can  be  nothing  at  all,  except  some- 
thing very  tamely  and  narrowly  confined  to  mainly  practical 
ends  —  a  kind  of  "good  round-hand";  as  useless  as  the 
protest  that  poetry  might  not  touch  prosaic  subjects  as  with 
Wordsworth,  or  an  abtruse  matter  as  with  Browning,  or 
treat  contemporary  life  nobly  as  with  Tennyson.  In  sub- 
ordination to  one  essential  beauty  in  all  good  literary  style, 
in  all  literature  as  a  fine  art,  as  there  are  many  beauties  of 
poetry  so  the  beauties  of  prose  are  many,  and  it  is  the  busi- 
ness of  criticism  to  estimate  them  as  such;  as  it  is  good  in 
the  criticism  of  verse  to  look  for  those  hard,  logical,  and  quasi- 
prosaic  excellences  which  that  too  has,  or  needs.  To  find  in 
the  poem,  amid  the  flowers,  the  allusions,  the  mixed  perspec- 
tives, of  Lycidas,  for  instance,  the  thought,  the  logical  struc- 
ture :  —  how  wholesome  !  how  delightful !  as  to  identify  in 
prose  what  we  call  the  poetry,  the  imaginative  power,  not 
treating  it  as  out  of  place  and  a  kind  of  vagrant  intruder,  but 
by  way  of  an  estimate  of  its  rights,  that  is,  of  its  achieved 
powers,  there. 

Dryden,  with  the  characteristic  instinct  of  his  age,  loved 
to  emphasize  the  distinction  between  poetry  and  prose,  the 
protest  against  their  confusion  with  each  other  coming  with 


PA  TER  389 

somewhat  diminished  effect  from  one  whose  poetry  was  so 
prosaic.  In  truth,  his  sense  of  prosaic  excellence  affected 
his  verse  rather  than  his  prose,  which  is  not  only  fervid,  richly 
figured,  poetic,  as  we  say,  but  vitiated,  all  unconsciously,  by 
many  a  scanning  line.  Setting  up  correctness,  that  humble 
merit  of  prose,  as  the  central  literary  excellence,  he  is  really 
a  less  correct  writer  than  he  may  seem,  still  with  an  imperfect 
mastery  of  the  relative  pronoun.  It  might  have  been  foreseen 
that,  in  the  rotations  of  mind,  the  province  of  poetry  in  prose 
would  find  its  assertor;  and,  a  centur}^  after  Dryden,  amid 
very  different  intellectual  needs,  and  with  the  need  therefore 
of  great  modifications  in  literary  form,  the  range  of  the  poetic 
force  in  literature  was  effectively  enlarged  by  Wordsworth. 
The  true  distinction  between  prose  and  poetry  he  regarded 
as  the  almost  technical  or  accidental  one  of  the  absence  or 
presence  of  metrical  beauty,  or,  say !  metrical  restraint;  ^  and 
for  him  the  opposition  came  to  be  between  verse  and  prose 
of  course;  but,  as  the  essential  dichotomy  in  this  matter, 
between  imaginative  and  unimaginative  writing,  parallel 
to  DeQuincey's  distinction^  between  "  the  literature  of  power 
and  the  literature  of  knowledge,"  in  the  former  of  which  the 
composer  gives  us  not  fact,  but  his  peculiar  sense  of  fact, 
whether  past  or  present. 

Dismissing  then,  under  sanction  of  Wordsworth,  that 
harsher  opposition  of  poetry  to  prose,  as  savoring  in  fact  of 
the  arbitrary  psychology  of  the  last  century,  and  with  it  the 
prejudice  that  there  can  be  but  one  only  beauty  of  prose  style, 
I  propose  here  to  point  out  certain  qualities  of  all  literature 
as  a  fine  art,  which,  if  they  apply  to  the  literature  of  fact, 
apply  still  more  to  the  literature  of  the  imaginative  sense  of 
fact,  while  they  apply  indifferently  to  verse  and  prose,  so 
far  as  either  is  really  imaginative  —  certain  conditions  of  true 
art  in  both  alike,  which  conditions  may  also  contain  in  them 


390  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

the  secret  of  the  proper  discrimination  and  guardianship  of  the 
pecuHar  excellences  of  either. 

The  line  between  fact  and  something  quite  different  from 
external  fact  is,  indeed,  hard  to  draw.  In  Pascal,  for  instance, 
in  the  persuasive  writers  generally,  how  difficult  to  define  the 
point  where,  from  time  to  time,  argument  which,  if  it  is  to  be 
worth  anything  at  all,  must  consist  of  facts  or  groups  of  facts, 
becomes  a  pleading — a  theorem  no  longer,  but  essentially 
an  appeal  to  the  reader  to  catch  the  writer's  spirit,  to  think 
with  him,  if  one  can  or  will  —  an  expression  no  longer  of  fact 
but  of  his  sense  of  it,  his  pecuHar  intuition  of  a  world,  pro- 
spective, or  discerned  below  the  faulty  conditions  of  the  pres- 
ent, in  either  case  changed  somewhat  from  the  actual  world. 
In  science,  on  the  other  hand,  in  history  so  far  as  it  conforms 
to  scientific  rule,  we  have  a  literary  domain  where  the  imag- 
ination may  be  thought  to  be  always  an  intruder.  And  as, 
in  all  science,  the  functions  of  literature  reduce  themselves 
eventually  to  the  transcribing  of  fact,  so  all  the  excellences 
of  literary  form  in  regard  to  science  are  reducible  to  various 
kinds  of  painstaking;  this  good  quality  being  involved  in  all 
"  skilled  work  "  whatever,  in  the  drafting  of  an  act  of  par- 
liament, as  in  sewing.  Yet  here  again,  the  writer's  sense  of 
fact,  in  history  especially,  and  in  all  those  complex  subjects 
which  do  but  He  on  the  borders  of  science,  will  still  take  the 
place  of  fact,  in  various  degrees.  Your  historian,  for  instance, 
with  absolutely  truthful  intention,  amid  the  multitude  of 
facts  presented  to  him  must  needs  select,  and  in  selecting 
assert  something  of  his  own  humor,  something  that  comes  not 
of  the  world  without  but  of  a  vision  within.  So  Gibbon 
moulds  his  unwieldy  material  to  a  preconceived  view.  Livy, 
Tacitus,  Michelet,  moving  full  of  poignant  sensibility  amid  the 
records  of  the  past,  each,  after  his  own  sense,  modifies  —  who 
can  tell  where  and  to  what  degree  ?  —  and  becomes  something 


PATER  391 

else  than  a  transcriber;  each,  as  he  thus  modifies,  passing 
into  the  domain  of  art  proper.  For  just  in  proportion  as  the 
writer's  aim,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  comes  to  be  the 
transcribing,  not  of  the  world,  not  of  mere  fact,  but  of  his 
sense  of  it,  he  becomes  an  artist,  his  work  -fine  art ;  and  good 
art  (as  I  hope  ultimately  to  show)  in  proportion  to  the  truth  of 
his  presentment  of  that  sense;  as  in  those  humbler  or  plainer 
functions  of  hterature  also,  truth  —  truth  to  bare  fact,  there 
—  is  the  essence  of  such  artistic  quahty  as  they  may  have. 
Truth !  there  can  be  no  merit,  no  craft  at  all,  without  that. 
And  further,  all  beauty  is  in  the  long  run  only  -fineness  of 
truth,  or  what  we  call  expression,  the  finer  accommodation  of 
speech  to  that  vision  within. 

—  The  transcript  of  his  sense  of  fact  rather  than  the  fact, 
as  being  preferable,  pleasanter,  more  beautiful  to  the  writer 
himself.  In  literature,  as  in  every  other  product  of  human 
skill,  in  the  moulding  of  a  bell  or  a  platter  for  instance,  wher- 
ever this  sense  asserts  itself,  wherever  the  producer  so  modifies 
his  work  as,  over  and  above  its  primary  use  or  intention,  to 
make  it  pleasing  (to  himself,  of  course,  in  the  first  instance) 
there,  "  fine  "  as  opposed  to  merely  serviceable  art,  exists. 
Literary  art,  that  is,  like  all  art  which  is  in  any  way  imitative 
or  reproductive  of  fact  —  form,  or  color,  or  incident  —  is 
the  representation  of  such  fact  as  connected  with  soul,  of  a 
specific  personality,  in  its  preferences,  its  volition  and  power. 

Such  is  the  matter  of  imaginative  or  artistic  literature  — 
this  transcript,  not  of  mere  fact,  but  of  fact  in  its  infinite  va- 
riety, as  modified  by  human  preference  in  all  its  infinitely 
varied  forms.  It  will  be  good  literary  art  not  because  it  is 
brilliant  or  sober,  or  rich,  or  impulsive,  or  severe,  but  just  in 
proportion  as  its  representation  of  that  sense,  that  soul-fact, 
is  true,  verse  being  only  one  department  of  such  literature, 
and  imaginative  prose,  it  may  be  thought,  being  the  special 


392  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

art  of  the  modern  world.  That  imaginative  prose  should  be 
the  special  and  opportune  art  of  the  modern  world  results  from 
two  important  facts  about  the  latter:  first,  the  chaotic  va- 
riety and  complexity  of  its  interests,  making  the  intellectual 
issue,  the  really  master  currents  of  the  present  time  incalcu- 
lable —  a  condition  of  mind  little  susceptible  of  the  restraint 
proper  to  verse  form,  so  that  the  most  characteristic  verse 
of  the  nineteenth  century  has  been  lawless  verse;  and  secondly, 
an  all-pervading  naturalism,  a  curiosity  about  everything 
whatever  as  it  really  is,  involving  a  certain  humility  of  attitude, 
cognate  to  what  must,  after  all,  be  the  less  ambitious  form 
of  literature.  And  prose  thus  asserting  itself  as  the  special 
and  privileged  artistic  faculty  of  the  present  day,  will  be, 
however  critics  may  try  to  narrow  its  scope,  as  varied  in  its 
excellence  as  humanity  itself  reflecting  on  the  facts  of  its 
latest  experience  —  an  instrument  of  many  stops,  meditative, 
observant,  descriptive,  eloquent,  analytic,  plaintive,  fervid. 
Its  beauties  will  be  not  exclusively  "pedestrian":  it  will 
exert,  in  due  measure,  all  the  varied  charms  of  poetry,  down 
to  the  rhythm  which,  as  in  Cicero,  orMichelet,  or  Newman,  at 
their  best,  gives  its  musical  value  to  every  syllable.* 

The  literary  artist  is  of  necessity  a  scholar,  and  in  what  he 
proposes  to  do  will  have  in  mind,  first  of  all,  the  scholar  and 
the  scholarly  conscience  —  the  male  conscience  in  this  matter, 
as  we  must  think  it,  under  a  system  of  education  which  still 
to  so  large  an  extent  hmits  real  scholarship  to  men.     In  his 

*  Mr.  Saintsbury,  in  his  Specimens  of  English  Prose,  jrom  Malory  to 
Macaulay,  has  succeeded  in  tracing,  through  successive  EngHsh  prose-writers, 
the  tradition  of  that  severer  beauty  in  them,  of  which  this  admirable  scholar 
of  our  literature  is  known  to  be  a  lover.  English  Prose,  from  Mandeville  to 
Thackeray,  more  recently  "chosen  and  edited"  by  a  younger  scholar,  Mr. 
Arthur  Galton,  of  New  College,  Oxford,  a  lover  of  our  literature  at  once  en- 
thusiastic and  discreet,  aims  at  a  more  various  illustration  of  the  eloquent 
powers  of  English  prose,  and  is  a  delightful  companion. 


PATER  393 

self-criticism,  he  supposes  always  that  sort  of  reader  who  will 
go  (full  of  eyes)  warily,  considerately,  though  without  con- 
sideration for  him,  over  the  ground  which  the  female  con- 
science traverses  so  lightly,  so  amiably.  For  the  material 
in  which  he  works  is  no  more  a  creation  of  his  own  than  the 
sculptor's  marble.  Product  of  a  myriad  various  minds  and 
contending  tongues,  compact  of  obscure  and  minute  associa- 
tion, a  language  has  its  own  abundant  and  often  recondite 
laws,  in  the  habitual  and  summary  recognition  of  which 
scholarship  consists.  A  writer,  full  of  a  matter  he  is  before  all 
things  anxious  to  express,  may  think  of  those  laws,  the  hm- 
itations  of  vocabulary,  structure,  and  the  like,  as  a  restriction, 
but  if  a  real  artist,  will  find  in  them  an  opportunity.  His 
punctilious  observance  of  the  proprieties  of  his  medium  will 
diffuse  through  all  he  writes  a  general  air  of  sensibility,  of 
refined  usage.  Excliisiones  dehitcB  naturcE — ^the  exclusions, 
or  rejections,  which  nature  demands  —  we  know  how  large 
a  part  these  play,  according  to  Bacon,  in  the  science  of  nature. 
In  a  somewhat  changed  sense,  we  might  say  that  the  art  of  the 
scholar  is  summed  up  in  the  observance  of  those  rejections 
demanded  by  the  nature  of  his  medium,  the  material  he  must 
use.  Alive  to  the  value  of  an  atmosphere  in  which  every 
term  finds  its  utmost  degree  of  expression,  and  with  all  the 
jealousy  of  a  lover  of  words,  he  will  resist  a  constant  tendency 
on  the  part  of  the  majority  of  those  who  use  them  to  efface 
the  distinctions  of  language,  the  facihty  of  writers  often 
reenforcing  in  this  respect  the  work  of  the  vulgar.  He  will 
feel  the  obligation  not  of  the  laws  only,  but  of  those  affinities, 
avoidances,  those  mere  preferences,  of  his  language,  which 
through  the  associations  of  literary  history  have  become  a  part 
of  its  nature,  prescribing  the  rejection  of  many  a  neology, 
many  a  license,  many  a  gipsy  phrase  which  might  present  itself 
as  actually  expressive.     His  appeal,  again,  is  to  the  scholar. 


394  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

who  has  great  experience  in  literature  and  will  show  no 
favor  to  short-cuts,  or  hackneyed  illustration,  or  an  affecta- 
tion of  learning  designed  for  the  unlearned.  Hence  a  con- 
tention, a  sense  of  self-restraint  and  renunciation,  having  for 
the  susceptible  reader  the  effect  of  a  challenge  for  minute 
consideration;  the  attention  of  the  writer,  in  every  minutest 
detail,  being  a  pledge  that  it  is  worth  the  reader's  while  to  be 
attentive  too,  that  the  writer  is  dealing  scrupulously  with  his 
instrument,  and  therefore,  indirectly,  with  the  reader  himself 
also,  that  he  has  the  science  of  the  instrument  he  plays  on, 
perhaps,  after  all,  with  a  freedom  which  in  such  case  will  be 
the  freedom  of  a  master. 

For  meanwhile,  braced  only  by  those  restraints,  he  is 
really  vindicating  his  liberty  in  the  making  of  a  vocabulary, 
an  entire  system  of  composition,  for  himself,  his  own  true 
manner;  and  when  we  speak  of  the  manner  of  a  true  master 
we  mean  what  is  essential  in  his  art.  Pedantry  being  only  the 
scholarship  of  le  culstre  (we  have  no  English  equivalent)  he 
is  no  pedant,  and  does  but  show  his  intelligence  of  the  rules 
of  language  in  his  freedoms  with  it,  addition  or  expansion, 
which  like  the  spontaneities  of  manner  in  a  well-bred  person 
will  still  further  illustrate  good  taste.  — The  right  vocabulary  ! 
Translators  have  not  invariably  seen  how  all-important  that 
is  in  the  work  of  translation,  driving  for  the  most  part  at 
idiom  or  construction;  whereas,  if  the  original  be  first-rate, 
one's  first  care  should  be  with  its  elementary  particles,  Plato, 
for  instance,  being  often  reproducible  by  an  exact  following, 
with  no  variation  in  structure,  of  word  after  word,  as  the  pencil 
follows  a  drawing  under  tracing-paper,  so  only  each  word  or 
syllable  be  not  of  false  color,  to  change  my  illustration  a  little. 

Well !  that  is  because  any  writer  worlh  translating  at  all 
has  winnowed  and  searched  through  his  vocabulary,  is  con- 
scious of  the  words  he  would  select  in  systematic  reading  of  a 


FA  TER  395 

dictionary,  and  still  more  of  the  words  he  would  reject  were 
the  dictionary  other  than  Johnson's;  and  doing  this  with  his 
peculiar  sense  of  the  world  ever  in  view,  in  search  of  an  in- 
strument for  the  adequate  expression  of  that,  he  begets  a 
vocabulary  faithful  to  the  coloring  of  his  own  spirit,  and  in 
the  strictest  sense  original.  That  living  authority  which 
language  needs  lies,  in  truth,  in  its  scholars,  who,  recognizing 
always  that  every  language  possesses  a  genius,  a  very  fastidious 
genius,  of  its  own,  expand  at  once  and  purify  its  very  ele- 
ments, which  must  needs  change  along  with  the  changing 
thoughts  of  Hving  people.  Ninety  years  ago,  for  instance, 
great  mental  force,  certainly,  was  needed  by  Wordsworth, 
to  break  through  the  consecrated  poetic  associations  of  a 
century,  and  speak  the  language  that  was  his,  that  was  to  be- 
come in  a  measure  the  language  of  the  next  generation.  But 
he  did  it  with  the  tact  of  a  scholar  also.  English,  for  a  quarter 
of  a  century  past,  has  been  assimilating  the  phraseology  of 
pictorial  art;  for  half  a  century,  the  phraseology  of  the  great 
German  metaphysical  movement  of  eighty  years  ago;  in  part 
also  the  language  of  mystical  theology :  and  none  but  pedants 
will  regret  a  great  consequent  increase  of  its  resources.  For 
many  years  to  come  its  enterprise  may  well  lie  in  the  natural- 
ization of  the  vocabulary  of  science,  so  only  it  be  under  the 
eye  of  a  sensitive  scholarship  —  in  a  hberal  naturalization 
of  the  ideas  of  science  too,  for  after  all  the  chief  stimulus  of 
good  style  is  to  possess  a  full,  rich,  complex  matter  to  grapple 
with.  The  literary  artist,  therefore,  will  be  well  aware  of 
physical  science;  science  also  attaining,  in  its  turn,  its  true 
literary  ideal.  And  then,  as  the  scholar  is  nothing  without 
the  historic  sense,  he  will  be  apt  to  restore  not  really  obsolete 
or  really  worn-out  words,  but  the  finer  edge  of  words  still 
in  use :  ascertain^  communicate,  discover  —  words  like  these 
it  has  been  part  of  our  "  business  "  to  misuse.     And  still, 


396  THEORIES    OE  STYLE  IN  LITER  A  TURE 

as  language  was  made  for  man,  he  will  be  no  authority  for 
correctnesses  which,  limiting  freedom  of  utterance,  were  yet 
but  accidents  in  their  origin;  as  if  one  vowed  not  to  say  "  i/5," 
which  ought  to  have  been  in  Shakespeare;  ''his  "  and  "  hers,^'' 
for  inanimate  objects,  being  but  a  barbarous  and  really 
inexpressive  survival.  Yet  we  have  known  many  things  like 
this.  Racy  Saxon  monosyllables,  close  to  us  as  touch  and 
sight,  he  will  intermix  readily  with  those  long,  savorsome, 
Latin  words,  rich  in  "  second  intention."  In  this  late  day 
certainly,  no  critical  process  can  be  conducted  reasonably 
without  eclecticism.  Of  such  eclecticism  we  have  a  justifying 
example  in  one  of  the  first  poets  of  our  time.  How  illustrative 
of  monosyllabic  effect,  of  sonorous  Latin,  of  the  phraseology 
of  science,  of  metaphysic,  of  colloquialism  even,  are  the 
writings  of  Tennyson;  yet  with  what  a  fine,  fastidious  scholar- 
ship throughout ! 

A  scholar  writing  for  the  scholarly,  he  will  of  course  leave 
something  to  the  wilhng  intelligence  of  his  reader.  "  To 
go  preach  to  the  first  passer-by,"  says  Montaigne,  "  to  become 
tutor  to  the  ignorance  of  the  first  I  meet,  is  a  thing  I  abhor;  " 
a  thing,  in  fact,  naturally  distressing  to  the  scholar,  who  will 
therefore  ever  be  shy  of  offering  uncompUmentary  assistance 
to  the  reader's  wit.  To  really  strenuous  minds  there  is  a 
pleasurable  ^  stimulus  in  the  challenge  for  a  continuous 
effort  on  their  part,  to  be  rewarded  by  securer  and  more  in- 
timate grasp  of  the  author's  sense.  Self-restraint,  a  skilful 
economy  of  means,  ascesis,  that  too  has  a  beauty  of  its  own; 
and  for  the  reader  supposed  there  will  be  an  aesthetic  satis- 
faction in  that  frugal  closeness  of  style  which  makes  the  most 
of  a  word,  in  the  exaction  from  every  sentence  of  a  precise 
rehef,  in  the  just  spacing  out  of  word  to  thought,  in  the  log- 
ically filled  space  connected  always  with  the  delightful  sense 
of  difficulty  overcome. 


PA  TER  397 

Different  classes  of  persons,  at  different  times,  make,  of 
course,  very  various  demands  upon  literature.  Still,  scholars, 
I  suppose,  and  not  only  scholars,  but  all  disinterested  lovers 
of  books,  will  always  look  to  it,  as  to  all  other  fine  art,  for  a 
refuge,  a  sort  of  cloistral  refuge,  from  a  certain  vulgarity 
in  the  actual  world.  A  perfect  poem  like  Lycidas,  a  perfect 
fiction  like  Esmond  *  the  perfect  handling  of  a  theory  like 
Newman's  Idea  oj  a  University,  has  for  them  something  of 
the  uses  of  a  rehgious  "  retreat."  Here,  then,  with  a  view 
to  the  central  need  of  a  select  few,  those  "  men  of  a  finer 
thread  "  who  have  formed  and  maintain  the  literary  ideal, 
everything,  every  component  element,  will  have  undergone 
exact  trial,  and,  above  all,  there  will  be  no  uncharacteristic 
or  tarnished  or  vulgar  decoration,  permissible  ornament  being 
for  the  most  part  structural,  or  necessary.  As  the  painter 
in  his  picture,  so  the  artist  in  his  book,  aims  at  the  production 
by  honorable  artifice  of  a  pecuHar  atmosphere.  "  The  artist," 
says  Schiller,  "  may  be  known  rather  by  what  he  omits  "; 
and  in  Hterature,  too,  the  true  artist  may  be  best  recognized  by 
his  tact  of  omission.  For  to  the  grave  reader  words  too  are 
grave;  and  the  ornamental  word,  the  figure,  the  accessory 
form  or  color  or  reference,  is  rarely  content  to  die  to  thought 
precisely  at  the  right  moment,  but  will  inevitably  linger  awhile, 
stirring  a  long  "  brain-wave  "  behind  it  of  perhaps  quite  alien 
associations. 

Just  there,  it  may  be,  is  the  detrimental  tendency  of  the 
sort  of  scholarly  attentiveness  of  mind  I  am  recommending. 
But  the  true  artist  allows  for  it.  He  will  remember  that, 
as  the  very  word  ornament  indicates  what  is  in  itself  non- 
essential, so  the  "  one  beauty  "  of  all  literary  style  is  of  its 
very  essence,  and  independent,  in  prose  and  verse  alike,  of 
all  removable  decoration;  that  it  may  exist  in  its  fullest  lustre, 
as  in  Flaubert's  Madame  Bovary,  for  instance,  or  in  Sten- 


398  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

dhal's  Le  Rouge  el  Le  Noir,  in  a  composition  utterly  un- 
adorned, with  hardly  a  single  suggestion  of  visibly  beautiful 
things.  Parallel,  allusion,  the  allusive  way  generally,  the 
flowers  in  the  garden:  —  he  knows  the  narcotic  force  of  these 
upon  the  negligent  intelligence  to  which  any  diversion,  literally, 
is  welcome,  any  vagrant  intruder,  because  one  can  go  wan- 
dering away  with  it  from  the  immediate  subject.  Jealous, 
if  he  have  a  really  quickening  motive  within,  of  all  that  does 
not  hold  directly  to  that,  of  the  facile,  the  otiose,  he  will  never 
depart  from  the  strictly  pedestrian  process,  unless  he  gains 
a  ponderable  something  thereby.  Even  assured  of  its  con- 
gruity,  he  will  still  question  its  serviceablencss.  Is  it  worth 
while,  can  we  afford,  to  attend  to  just  that,  to  just  that  figure 
or  literary  reference,  just  then?  —  Surplusage  !  he  will  dread 
that,  as  the  runner  on  his  muscles.  For  in  truth  all  art  does 
but  consist  in  the  removal  of  surplusage,  from  the  last  finish 
of  the  gem-engraver  blowing  away  the  last  particle  of  invisible 
dust,  back  to  the  earliest  divination  of  the  finished  work  to  be, 
lying  somewhere,  according  to  Michelangelo's  fancy,  in  the 
rough-hewn  block  of  stone. 

And  what  apphes  to  figure  or  flower  must  be  understood  of 
all  other  accidental  or  removable  ornaments  of  writing  what- 
ever; and  not  of  specific  ornament  only,  but  of  all  that  latent 
color  and  imagery  which  language  as  such  carries  in  it.  A 
lover  of  words  for  their  own  sake,  to  whom  nothing  about  them 
is  unimportant,  a  minute  and  constant  observer  of  their 
physiognomy,  he  will  be  on  the  alert  not  only  for  obviously 
mixed  metaphors  of  course,  but  for  the  metaphor  that  is 
mixed  in  all  our  speech,  though  a  rapid  use  may  involve  no 
cognition  of  it.  Currently  recognizing  the  incident,  the  color, 
the  physical  elements  or  particles  in  words  like  absorb,  con- 
sider, extract,  to  take  the  first  that  occur,  he  will  avail  himself 
of  them,  as  further  adding  to  the  resources  of  expression. 


PA  TER  399 

The  elementary  particles  of  language  will  be  realized  as 
color  and  light  and  shade  through  his  scholarly  Hving  in  the 
full  sense  of  them.  Still  opposing  the  constant  degradation 
of  language  by  those  who  use  it  carelessly,  he  will  not  treat 
colored  glass  as  if  it  were  clear;  and  while  half  the  world  is 
using  figure  unconsciously,  will  be  fully  aware  not  only  of  all 
that  latent  figurative  texture  in  speech,  but  of  the  vague,  lazy, 
half-formed  personification  —  a  rhetoric,  depressing,  and 
worse  than  nothing,  because  it  has  no  really  rhetorical  motive 
—  which  plays  so  large  a  part  there,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  more 
ostentatious  ornament,  scrupulously  exact  of  it,  from  syllable 
to  syllable,  its  precise  value. 

So  far  I  have  been  speaking  of  certain  conditions  of  the 
literary  art  arising  out  of  the  medium  or  material  in  or  upon 
which  it  works,  the  essential  qualities  of  language  and  its 
aptitudes  for  contingent  ornamentation,  matters  which  define 
scholarship  as  science  and  good  taste  respectively.  They  are 
both  subservient  to  a  more  intimate  quality  of  good  style: 
more  intimate,  as  coming  nearer  to  the  artist  himself.  The 
otiose,  the  facile,  surplusage :  why  are  these  abhorrent  to  the 
true  literary  artist,  except  because,  in  literary  as  in  all  other 
art,  structure  is  all-important,  felt,  or  painfully  missed,  every- 
where? —  that  architectural  conception  of  work,  which  fore- 
sees the  end  in  the  beginning  and  never  loses  sight  of  it,  and 
in  every  part  is  conscious  of  all  the  rest,  till  the  last  sentence 
does  but,  with  undiminished  vigor,  unfold  and  justify  the 
first  —  a  condition  of  literary  art,  which,  in  contradistinction 
to  another  quality  of  the  artist  himself,  to  be  spoken  of  later, 
I  shall  call  the  necessity  of  mind  in  style. 

An  acute  philosophical  writer,  the  late  Dean  Mansel  (a 
writer  whose  works  illustrate  the  literary  beauty  there  may 
be  in  closeness,  and  with  obvious  repression  or  economy 
of  a  fine  rhetorical  gift)  wrote  a  book,  of  fascinating  precision 


400  THEORIES   OE  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

in  a  very  obscure  subject,  to  show  that  all  the  technical  laws 
of  logic  are  but  means  of  securing,  in  each  and  all  of  its  ap- 
prehensions, the  unity,  the  strict  identity  with  itself,  of  the 
apprehending  mind.  All  the  laws  of  good  writing  aim  at  a 
similar  unity  or  identity  of  the  mind  in  all  the  processes  by 
which  the  word  is  associated  to  its  import.  The  term  is  right, 
and  has  its  essential  beauty,  when  it  becomes,  in  a  manner, 
what  it  signifies,  as  with  the  names  of  simple  sensations.  To 
give  the  phrase,  the  sentence,  the  structural  member,  the  entire 
composition,  song,  or  essay,  a  similar  unity  with  its  subject 
and  with  itself  :  —  style  is  in  the  right  way  when  it  tends 
towards  that.  All  depends  upon  the  original  unity,  the  vital 
wholeness  and  identity,  of  the  initiatory  apprehension  or  view. 
So  much  is  true  of  all  art,  which  therefore  requires  always 
its  logic,  its  comprehensive  reason  —  insight,  foresight,  ret- 
rospect, in  simultaneous  action  —  true,  most  of  all,  of  the 
literary  art,  as  being  of  all  the  arts  most  closely  cognate  to  the 
abstract  intelligence.  Such  logical  coherency  may  be  evi- 
denced not  merely  in  the  lines  of  composition  as  a  whole, 
but  in  the  choice  of  a  single  word,  while  it  by  no  means  inter- 
feres with,  but  may  even  prescribe,  much  variety,  in  the  build- 
ing of  the  sentence  for  instance,  or  in  the  manner,  argumen- 
tative, descriptive,  discursive,  of  this  or  that  part  or  member 
of  the  entire  design.  The  blithe,  crisp  sentence,  decisive  as 
a  child's  expression  of  its  needs,  may  alternate  with  the  long- 
contending,  victoriously  intricate  sentence;  the  sentence 
born  with  the  integrity  of  a  single  word,  relieving  the  sort  of 
sentence  in  which,  if  you  look  closely,  you  can  see  much  con- 
trivance, much  adjustment,  to  bring  a  highly  qualified  matter 
into  compass  at  one  view.  For  the  literary  architecture, 
if  it  is  to  be  rich  and  expressive,  involves  not  only  foresight 
of  the  end  in  the  beginning,  but  also  development  or  growth 
of  design,  in  the  process  of  execution,  with  many  irregularities, 


PA  TER  40 1 

surprises,  and  afterthoughts;  the  contingent  as  well  as  the 
necessary  being  subsumed  under  the  unity  of  the  whole. 
As  truly,  to  the  lack  of  such  architectural  design,  of  a  single, 
almost  visual,  image,  vigorously  informing  an  entire,  [)erha])S 
very  intricate,  composition,  which  shall  be  austere,  ornate, 
argumentative,  fanciful,  yet  true  from  first  to  last  to  that 
vision  within,  may  be  attributed  those  weaknesses  of  con- 
scious or  unconscious  repetition  of  word,  phrase,  motive, 
or  member  of  the  whole  matter,  indicating,  as  Flaubert  was 
aware,  an  original  structure  in  thought  not  organically 
complete.  With  such  foresight,  the  actual  conclusion  will 
most  often  get  itself  written  out  of  hand,  before,  in  the  more 
obvious  sense,  the  work  is  finished.  With  some  strong  and 
leading  sense  of  the  world,  the  tight  hold  of  which  secures  true 
composition  and  not  mere  loose  accretion,  the  literary  artist, 
I  suppose,  goes  on  considerately,  setting  joint  to  joint,  sus- 
tained by  yet  restraining  the  productive  ardor,  retracing 
the  negligences  of  his  first  sketch,  repeating  his  steps  only 
that  he  may  give  the  reader  a  sense  of  secure  and  restful  prog- 
ress, readjusting  mere  assonances  even,  that  they  may  soothe 
the  reader,  or  at  least  not  interrupt  him  on  his  way;  and  then, 
somewhere  before  the  end  comes,  is  burdened,  inspired,  with 
his  conclusion,  and  betimes  delivered  of  it,  leaving  off,  not 
in  weariness  and  because  he  finds  himself  at  an  end,  but  in 
all  the  freshness  of  volition.  His  work  now  structurally  com- 
plete, with  all  the  accumulating  effect  of  secondary  shades 
of  meaning,  he  finishes  the  whole  up  to  the  just  proportion 
of  that  antepenultimate  conclusion,  and  all  becomes  ex- 
pressive. The  house  he  has  built  is  rather  a  body  he  has 
informed.  And  so  it  happens,  to  its  greater  credit,  that  the 
better  interest  even  of  a  narrative  to  be  recounted,  a  story 
to  be  told,  will  often  be  in  its  second  reading.  And  though 
there  are  instances  of  great  writers  who  have  been  no  artists, 


402  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

an  unconscious  tact  sometimes  directing  work  in  which  we 
may  detect,  very  plcasurably,  many  of  the  effects  of  conscious 
art,  yet  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  of  really  good  prose 
literature  is  in  the  critical  tracing  out  of  that  conscious  artistic 
structure,  and  the  pervading  sense  of  it  as  we  read.  Yet  of 
poetic  literature  too;  for,  in  truth,  the  kind  of  constructive  intel- 
ligence here  supposed  is  one  of  the  forms  of  the  imagination. 
That  is  the  special  function  of  mind,  in  style.  Mind  and 
soul:  —  hard  to  ascertain  philosophically,  the  distinction  is 
real  enough  practically,  for  they  often  interfere,  are  some- 
times in  conflict,  with  each  other.  Blake,  in  the  last  century, 
is  an  instance  of  preponderating  soul,  embarrassed,  at  a  loss, 
in  an  era  of  preponderating  mind.  As  a  quality  of  style,  at 
all  events,  soul  is  a  fact,  in  certain  writers  —  the  way  they  have 
of  absorbing  language,  of  attracting  it  into  the  pecuhar  spirit 
they  are  of,  with  a  subtlety  which  makes  the  actual  result 
seem  hke  some  inexphcable  inspiration.  By  mind,  the  ht- 
erary  artist  reaches  us,  through  static  and  objective  indications 
of  design  in  his  work,  legible  to  all.  By  soul,  he  reaches  us, 
somewhat  capriciously  perhaps,  one  and  not  another,  through 
vagrant  sympathy  and  a  kind  of  immediate  contact.  Mind 
we  cannot  choose  but  approve  where  we  recognize  it;  soul 
may  repel  us,  not  because  we  misunderstand  it.  The  way 
in  which  theological  interests  sometimes  avail  themselves  of 
language  is  perhaps  the  best  illustration  of  the  force  I  mean  to 
indicate  generally  in  literature,  by  the  word  soul.  Ardent  re- 
ligious persuasion  may  exist,  may  make  its  way,  without  find- 
ing any  equivalent  heat  in  language:  or,  again,  it  may  en- 
kindle words  to  various  degrees,  and  when  it  really  takes  hold 
of  them  doubles  its  force.  Religious  history  presents  many 
remarkable  instances  in  which,  through  no  mere  phrase-wor- 
ship, an  unconscious  literary  tact  has,  for  the  sensitive,  laid 
open  a  privileged  pathway  from  one  to  another.     "  The  altar- 


PA  TER  403 

fire,"  people  say,  "has  touched  those  lips!"  The  Vulgate, 
the  English  Bible,  the  English  Prayer-Book,  the  writings  of 
Swedenborg,  the  Tracts  for  the  Times :  —  there,  we  have  in- 
stances of  widely  different  and  largely  diffused  phases  of  re- 
ligious feehng  in  operation  as  soul  in  style.  But  something  of 
the  same  kind  acts  with  similar  power  in  certain  writers  of 
quite  other  than  theological  literature,  on  behalf  of  some  wholly 
personal  and  peculiar  sense  of  theirs.  Most  easily  illustrated  by 
theological  literature,  this  quality  lends  to  profane  writers  a 
kind  of  religious  influence.  At  their  best,  these  writers  be- 
come, as  we  say  sometimes,  "  prophets  ";  such  character  de- 
pending on  the  effect  not  merely  of  their  matter,  but  of  their 
matter  as  allied  to,  in  "  electric  affinity  "  with,  peculiar  form, 
and  working  in  all  cases  by  an  immediate  sympathetic  contact, 
on  which  account  it  is  that  it  may  be  called  soul,  as  opposed 
to  mind,  in  style.  And  this  too  is  a  faculty  of  choosing  and 
rejecting  what  is  congruous  or  otherwise,  with  a  drift  towards 
unity  —  unity  of  atmosphere  here,  as  there  of  design  —  soul 
securing  color  (or  perfume,  might  we  say?)  as  mind  secures 
form,  the  latter  being  essentially  finite,  the  former  vague  or 
infinite,  as  the  influence  of  a  living  person  is  practically  infinite. 
There  are  some  to  whom  nothing  has  any  real  interest,  or  real 
meaning,  except  as  operative  in  a  given  person;  and  it  is 
they  who  best  appreciate  the  quality  of  soul  in  literary  art. 
They  seem  to  know  a  person,  in  a  book,  and  make  way  by 
intuition:  yet,  although  they  thus  enjoy  the  completeness  of  a 
personal  information,  it  is  still  a  characteristic  of  soul,  in  this 
sense  of  the  word,  that  it  does  but  suggest  what  can  never 
be  uttered,  not  as  being  different  from,  or  more  obscure  than, 
what  actually  gets  said,  but  as  containing  that  plenary  sub- 
stance of  which  there  is  only  one  phase  or  facet  in  what  is 
there  expressed. 

If  all  high  things  have  their  martyrs,  Gustave  Flaubert 


404  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

might  perhaps  rank  as  the  martyr  of  literary  style.  In  his 
printed  correspondence,  a  curious  series  of  letters,  written 
in  his  twenty-fifth  year,  records  what  seems  to  have  been  his 
one  other  passion  —  a  series  of  letters  which,  with  its  fine 
casuistries,  its  firmly  repressed  anguish,  its  tone  of  harmo- 
nious gray,  and  the  sense  of  disillusion  in  which  the  whole 
matter  ends,  might  have  been,  a  few  slight  changes  supposed, 
one  of  his  own  fictions.  Writing  to  Madame  X.  certainly  he 
does  display,  by  "  taking  thought  "  mainly,  by  constant  and 
dehcate  pondering,  as  in  his  love  for  hterature,  a  heart  really 
moved,  but  still  more,  and  as  the  pledge  of  that  emotion,  a 
loyalty  to  his  work.  Madame  X.,  too,  is  a  hterary  artist,  and 
the  best  gifts  he  can  send  her  are  precepts  of  perfection  in 
art,  counsels  for  the  effectual  pursuit  of  that  better  love.  In 
his  love-letters  it  is  the  pains  and  pleasures  of  art  he  insists 
on,  its  solaces:  he  communicates  secrets,  reproves,  encourages, 
with  a  view  to  that.  Whether  the  lady  was  dissatisfied  with 
such  divided  or  indirect  service,  the  reader  is  not  enabled  to 
see;  but  sees  that,  on  Flaubert's  part  at  least,  a  living  person 
could  be  no  rival  of  what  was,  from  first  to  last,  his  leading 
passion,  a  somewhat  solitary  and  exclusive  one. 

"  I  must  scold  you,"  he  writes,  "  for  one  thing,  which  shocks, 
scandalizes  me,  the  small  concern,  namely,  you  show  for  art  just  now. 
As  regards  glory  be  it  so:  there,  I  approve.  But  for  art!  — the  one 
thing  in  life  that  is  good  and  real  —  can  you  compare  with  it  an  earthly 
love?  —  prefer  the  adoration  of  a  relative  beauty  to  the  cultus  of  the 
true  beauty?  Well!  I  tell  you  the  truth.  That  is  the  one  thing 
good  in  me:  the  one  thing  I  have,  to  me  estimable.  For  yourself,  you 
blend  with  the  beautiful  a  heap  of  alien  things,  the  useful,  the  agree- 
able, what  not  ?  — 

"  The  only  way  not  to  be  unhappy  is  to  shut  yourself  up  in  art,  and 
count  everything  else  as  nothing.  Pride  takes  the  place  of  all  beside 
when  it  is  established  on  a  large  basis.  Work !  God  wills  it.  That, 
it  seems  to  me,  is  clear.  — 


PA  TER  405 

"  I  am  reading  over  again  the  ^Eneid,  certain  verses  of  which  I 
repeat  to  myself  to  satiety.  There  are  phrases  there  which  stay  in 
one's  head,  by  which  I  find  myself  beset,  as  with  those  musical  airs 
which  are  forever  returning,  and  cause  you  pain,  you  love  them  so 
much.  I  observe  that  I  no  longer  laugh  much,  and  am  no  longer 
depressed.  I  am  ripe.  You  talk  of  my  serenity,  and  envy  me.  It 
may  well  surprise  you.  Sick,  irritated,  the  prey  a  thousand  times  a 
day  of  cruel  pain,  I  continue  my  labor  like  a  true  working-man,  who, 
with  sleeves  turned  up,  in  the  sweat  of  his  brow,  beats  away  at  his 
anvil,  never  troubling  himself  whether  it  rains  or  blows,  for  hail  or 
thunder.  I  was  not  like  that  formerly.  The  change  has  taken  place 
naturally,  though   my  will  has  counted  for  something  in  the  matter.  — 

"Those  who  w^ite  in  good  style  are  sometimes  accused  of  a  neglect 
of  ideas,  and  of  the  moral  end,  as  if  the  end  of  the  physician  were  some- 
thing else  than  heaUng,  of  the  painter  than  painting  —  as  if  the  end 
of  art  were  not,  before  all  else,  the  beautiful." 

What,  then,  did  Flaubert  understand  by  beauty,  in  the 
art  he  pursued  with  so  much  fervor,  with  so  much  self-com- 
mand?   Let  us  hear  a  sympathetic  commentator:  — 

"  Possessed  of  an  absolute  belief  that  there  exists  but  one  way  of 
expressing  one  thing,  one  word  to  call  it  by,  one  adjective  to  qualify, 
one  verb  to  animate  it,  he  gave  himself  to  superhuman  labor  for  the 
discovery,  in  every  phrase,  of  that  word,  that  verb,  that  epithet.  In 
this  way,  he  believed  in  some  mysterious  harmony  of  expression,  and 
when  a  true  word  seemed  to  him  to  lack  euphony  still  went  on  seeking 
another,  with  invincible  patience,  certain  that  he  had  not  yet  got  hold 
of  the  uniqtie  word.  ...  A  thousand  preoccupations  would  beset  him 
at  the  .same  moment,  always  with  this  desperate  certitude  fixed  in  his 
spirit:  Among  all  the  expressions  in  the  world,  all  forms  and  turns  of 
expression,  there  is  but  one  —  one  form,  one  mode  —  to  express  what 
I  want  to  say." 

The  one  word  for  the  one  thing,  the  one  thought,  amid  the 
multitude  of  words,  terms,  that  might  just  do:  the  problem 
of  style  was  there !  —  the  unique  word,  phrase,  sentence, 
paragraph,  essay,  or  song,  absolutely  proper  to  the  single  men- 
tal presentation  or  vision  within.    In  that  perfect  justice,  over 


406  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

and  above  the  many  contingent  and  removable  beauties  vi^ith 
which  beautiful  style  may  charm  us,  but  which  it  can  exist 
without,  independent  of  them  yet  dexterously  availing  itself 
of  them,  omnipresent  in  good  work,  in  function  at  every 
point,  from  single  epithets  to  the  rhythm  of  a  whole  book, 
lay  the  specific,  indispensable,  very  intellectual,  beauty  of 
literature,  the  possibihty  of  which  constitutes  it  a  fine 
art. 

One  seems  to  detect  the  influence  of  a  philosophic  idea  there, 
the  idea  of  a  natural  economy,  of  some  preexistent  adaptation, 
between  a  relative,  somewhere  in  the  world  of  thought,  and  its 
correlative,  somewhere  in  the  world  of  language  —  both  alike, 
rather,  somewhere  in  the  mind  of  the  artist,  desiderative, 
expectant,  inventive  —  meeting  each  other  with  the  readiness 
of  "soul  and  body  reunited,"  in  Blake's  rapturous  design; 
and,  in  fact,  Flaubert  was  fond  of  giving  his  theory  philo- 
sophical expression.  — 

"  There  are  no  beautiful  thoughts,"  he  would  say,  "  without  beautiful 
forms,  and  conversely.  As  it  is  impossible  to  extract  from  a  physical 
body  the  qualities  which  really  constitute  it  —  color,  extension,  and  the 
like  —  without  reducing  it  to  a  hollow  abstraction,  in  a  word,  without 
destroying  it ;  just  so  it  is  impossible  to  detach  the  form  from  the  idea, 
for  the  idea  only  exists  by  virtue  of  the  form." 

All  the  recognized  flowers,  the  removable  ornaments  of 
literature  (including  harmony  and  ease  in  reading  aloud,  very 
carefully  considered  by  him)  counted  certainly;  for  these  too 
are  part  of  the  actual  value  of  what  one  says.  But  still,  after 
all,  with  Flaubert,  the  search,  the  unwearied  research,  was 
not  for  the  smooth,  or  winsome,  or  forcible  word,  as  such,  as 
with  false  Ciceronians,  but  quite  simply  and  honestly,  for  the 
word's  adjustment  to  its  meaning.  The  first  condition  of  this 
must  be,  of  course"  to  know  yourself,  to  have  ascertained  your 
own  sense  exactly.    Then,  if  we  suppose  an  artist,  he  says 


PA  TER  407 

to  the  reader,  —  I  want  you  to  see  precisely  what  I  see.  Into 
the  mind  sensitive  to  "  form,"  a  flood  of  random  sounds, 
colors,  incidents,  is  ever  penetrating  from  the  world  without, 
to  become,  by  sympathetic  selection,  a  part  of  its  very  struc- 
ture, and,  in  turn,  the  visible  vesture  and  expression  of  that 
other  world  it  sees  so  steadily  within,  nay,  already  with  a 
partial  conformity  thereto,  to  be  refined,  enlarged,  corrected, 
at  a  hundred  points;  and  it  is  just  there,  just  at  those  doubtful 
points  that  the  function  of  style,  as  tact  or  taste,  intervenes. 
The  unique  term  will  come  more  quickly  to  one  than  another, 
at  one  time  than  another,  according  also  to  the  kind  of  matter 
in  question.  Quickness  and  slowness,  ease  and  closeness 
alike,  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  artistic  character  of  the 
true  word  found  at  last.  As  there  is  a  charm  of  ease,  so  there 
is  also  a  special  charm  in  the  signs  of  discovery,  of  effort  and 
contention  towards  a  due  end,  as  so  often  with  Flaubert  him- 
self —  in  the  style  which  has  been  pliant,  as  only  obstinate, 
durable  metal  can  be,  to  the  inherent  perplexities  and  re- 
cusancy of  a  certain  difficult  thought. 

If  Flaubert  had  not  told  us,  perhaps  we  should  never  have 
guessed  how  tardy  and  painful  his  own  procedure  really  was, 
and  after  reading  his  confession  may  think  that  his  almost 
endless  hesitation  had  much  to  do  with  diseased  nerves. 
Often,  perhaps,  the  felicity  supposed  will  be  the  product  of 
a  happier,  a  more  exuberant  nature  than  Flaubert's.  Aggra- 
vated, certainly,  by  a  morbid  physical  condition,  that  anxiety 
in  "  seeking  the  phrase,"  which  gathered  all  the  other  small 
ennuis  of  a  really  quiet  existence  into  a  kind  of  battle,  was 
connected  with  his  lifelong  contention  against  facile  poetry, 
facile  art  —  art,  facile  and  flimsy;  and  what  constitutes  the 
true  artist  is  not  the  slowness  or  quickness  of  the  process,  but 
the  absolute  success  of  the  result.  As  with  those  laborers  in 
the  parable,  the  prize  is  independent  of  the  mere  length  of 


408  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  actual  day's  work.     "  You  talk,"  he  writes,  odd,  trying 
lover,  to  Madame  X.  — 

"  You  talk  of  the  exclusiveness  of  my  literary  tastes.  That  might 
have  enabled  you  to  divine  what  kind  of  a  person  I  am  in  the  matter 
of  love.  I  grow  so  hard  to  please  as  a  literary  artist,  that  I  am  driven 
to  despair.     I  shall  end  by  not  writing  another  line." 

"  Happy,"  he  cries,  in  a  moment  of  discouragement  at  that 
patient  labor,  which  for  him,  certainly,  was  the  condition  of 
a  great  success  — 

"  Happy  those  who  have  no  doubts  of  themselves !  who  lengthen 
out,  as  the  pen  runs  on,  all  that  flows  forth  from  their  brains.  As  for 
me,  I  hesitate,  I  disappoint  myself,  turn  round  upon  myself  in  despite: 
my  taste  is  augmented  in  proportion  as  my  natural  vigor  decreases, 
and  I  afflict  my  soul  over  some  dubious  word  out  of  all  proportion  to 
the  pleasure  I  get  from  a  whole  page  of  good  writing.  One  would 
have  to  live  two  centuries  to  attain  a  true  idea  of  any  matter  whatever. 
What  BufTon  said  is  a  big  blasphemy:  genius  is  not  long-continued 
patience.  Still,  there  is  some  truth  in  the  statement,  and  more  than 
people  think,  especially  as  regards  our  own  day.  Art !  art !  art !  bitter 
deception !  phantom  that  glows  with  light,  only  to  lead  one  on  to 
destruction." 

Again  — 

"  I  am  growing  so  peevish  about  my  writing.  I  am  like  a  man 
whose  ear  is  true  but  who  plays  falsely  on  the  violin :  his  fingers  refuse 
to  reproduce  precisely  those  sounds  of  which  he  has  the  inward  sense. 
Then  the  tears  come  rolling  down  from  the  poor  scraper's  eyes  and 
the  bow  falls  from  his  hand." 

Coming  slowly  or  quickly,  when  it  comes,  as  it  came  with 
so  much  labor  of  mind,  but  also  with  so  much  lustre,  to 
Gustave  Flaubert,  this  discovery  of  the  word  will  be,  like  all 
artistic  success  and  felicity,  incapable  of  strict  analysis :  effect 
of  an  intuitive  condition  of  mind,  it  must  be  recognized  by 
like  intuition  on  the  part  of  the  reader,  and  a  sort  of  im- 
mediate sense.     In  every  one  of  those  masterly  sentences  of 


PA  TER  409 

Flaubert  there  was,  below  all  mere  contrivance,  shaping,  and 
afterthought,  by  some  happy  instantaneous  concourse  of  the 
various  faculties  of  the  mind  with  each  other,  the  exact 
apprehension  of  what  was  needed  to  carry  the  meaning. 
And  that  it  fits  with  absolute  justice  will  be  a  judgment  of 
immediate  sense  in  the  appreciative  reader.  We  all  feel  this 
in  what  may  be  called  inspired  translation.  Well !  all  lan- 
guage involves  translation  from  inward  to  outward.  In 
literature,  as  in  all  forms  of  art,  there  are  the  absolute  and 
the  merely  relative  or  accessory  beauties;  and  precisely  in 
that  exact  proportion  of  the  term  to  its  purpose  is  the  abso- 
lute beauty  of  style,  prose  or  verse.  All  the  good  qualities, 
the  beauties,  of  verse  also,  are  such,  only  as  precise  expression. 
In  the  highest  as  in  the  lowliest  literature,  then,  the  one 
indispensable  beauty  is,  after  all,  truth :  —  truth  to  bare  fact 
in  the  latter,  as  to  some  personal  sense  of  fact,  diverted  some- 
what from  men's  ordinary  sense  of  it,  in  the  former;  truth 
there  as  accuracy,  truth  here  as  expression,  that  finest  and 
most  intimate  form  of  truth,  the  vraie  verite.  And  what  an 
eclectic  principle  this  really  is !  employing  for  its  one  sole 
purpose  —  that  absolute  accordance  of  expression  to  idea  — 
all  other  literary  beauties  and  excellences  whatever:  how 
many  kinds  of  style  it  covers,  explains,  justifies,  and  at  the 
same  time  safeguards !  Scott's  facility,  Flaubert's  deeply 
pondered  evocation  of  "  the  phrase,"  are  equally  good  art. 
Say  what  you  have  to  say,  what  you  have  a  will  to  say,  in 
the  simplest,  the  most  direct  and  exact  manner  possible,  with 
no  surplusage :  —  there,  is  the  justification  of  the  sentence  so 
fortunately  born,  "  entire,  smooth,  and  round,"  that  it  needs 
no  punctuation,  and  also  (that  is  the  point  !)  of  the  most 
elaborate  period,  if  it  be  right  in  its  elaboration.  Here  is 
the  office  of  ornament :  here  also  the  purpose  of  restraint  in 
ornament.     As  the  exponent  of  truth,   that  austerity   (the 


410  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

beauty,  the  function,  of  which  in  literature  Flaubert  under- 
stood so  well)  becomes  not  the  correctness  or  purism  of  the 
mere  scholar,  but  a  security  against  the  otiose,  a  jealous  ex- 
clusion of  what  does  not  really  tell  towards  the  pursuit  of 
relief,  of  life  and  vigor  in  the  portraiture  of  one's  sense. 
License  again,  the  making  free  with  rule,  if  it  be  indeed,  as 
people  fancy,  a  habit  of  genius,  flinging  aside  or  transforming 
all  that  opposes  the  liberty  of  beautiful  production,  will  be 
but  faith  to  one's  own  meaning.  The  seeming  baldness  of 
Le  Rouge  et  Le  Noir  is  nothing  in  itself;  the  wild  ornament 
of  Les  Miser ahles  is  nothing  in  itself;  and  the  restraint  of 
Flaubert,  amid  a  real  natural  opulence,  only  redoubled 
beauty  —  the  phrase  so  large  and  so  precise  at  the  same 
time,  hard  as  bronze,  in  service  to  the  more  perfect  adapta- 
tion of  words  to  their  matter.  Afterthoughts,  retouchings, 
finish,  will  be  of  profit  only  so  far  as  they  too  really  serve  to 
bring  out  the  original,  initiative,  generative,  sense  in  them. 

In  this  way,  according  to  the  well-known  saying,  "The 
style  is  the  man,"  ^  complex  or  simple,  in  his  individuality, 
his  plenary  sense  of  what  he  really  has  to  say,  his  sense  of 
the  world;  all  cautions  regarding  style  arising  out  of  so  many 
natural  scruples  as  to  the  medium  through  which  alone  he 
can  expose  that  inward  sense  of  things,  the  purity  of  this 
medium,  its  laws  or  tricks  of  refraction:  nothing  is  to  be 
left  there  which  might  give  conveyance  to  any  matter  save 
that.  Style  in  all  its  varieties,  reserved  or  opulent,  terse, 
abundant,  musical,  stimulant,  academic,  so  long  as  each  is 
really  characteristic  or  expressive,  finds  thus  its  justification, 
the  sumptuous  good  taste  of  Cicero  being  as  truly  the  man 
himself,  and  not  another,  justified,  yet  insured  inalienably  to 
him,  thereby,  as  would  have  been  his  portrait  by  Raffaelle, 
in  full  consular  s])lendor,  on  his  ivory  chair. 

A  relegation,  you  may  say  perhaps  —  a  relegation  of  style 


PATER  411 

to  the  subjectivity,  the  mere  caprice,  of  the  individual,  which 
must  soon  transform  it  into  mannerism.  Not  so  !  since  there 
is,  under  the  conditions  supposed,  for  those  elements  of  the 
man,  for  every  lineament  of  the  vision  within,  the  one  word, 
the  one  acceptable  word,  recognizable  by  the  sensitive,  by 
others  "  who  have  intelligence  "  in  the  matter,  as  absolutely 
as  ever  anything  can  be  in  the  evanescent  and  delicate  region 
of  human  language.  The  style,  the  manner,  would  be  the 
man,  not  in  his  unreasoned  and  really  uncharacteristic 
caprices,  involuntary  or  affected,  but  in  absolutely  sincere 
apprehension  of  what  is  most  real  to  him.  But  let  us  hear 
our  French  guide  again.  — • 

"  Styles,"  says  Flaubert's  commentator,  ^^  Styles,  as  so  many  peculiar 
moulds,  each  of  which  bears  the  mark  of  a  particular  writer,  who  is 
to  pour  into  it  the  whole  content  of  his  ideas,  were  no  part  of  his 
theory.  What  he  believed  in  was  Style:  that  is  to  say,  a  certain 
absolute  and  unique  manner  of  expressing  a  thing,  in  all  its  intensity 
and  color.  For  him  the  form  was  the  work  itself.  As  in  living 
creatures,  the  blood,  nourishing  the  body,  determines  its  very  contour 
and  external  aspect,  just  so,  to  his  mind,  the  matter,  the  basis,  in  a 
work  of  art,  imposed,  necessarily,  the  unique,  the  just  expression, •the 
measure,  the  rhythm — ^the  jorm  in  all  its  characteristics." 

If  the  style  be  the  man,  in  all  the  color  and  intensity  of  a 
veritable  apprehension,  it  will  be  in  a  real  sense  "  imper- 
sonal." 

I  said,  thinking  of  books  like  Victor  Hugo's  Les  Miserables, 
that  prose  literature  was  the  characteristic  art  of  the  nine- 
teenth century,  as  others,  thinking  of  its  triumphs  since  the 
youth  of  Bach,  have  assigned  that  place  to  music.  Music 
and  prose  literature  are,  in  one  sense,  the  opposite  terms  of 
art;  the  art  of  literature  presenting  to  the  imagination,  through 
the  intelligence,  a  range  of  interests,  as  free  and  various  as 
those  which  music  presents  to  it  through  sense.  And  cer- 
tainly the  tendency  of  what  has  been  here  said  is  to  bring 


412  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

literature  too  under  those  conditions,  by  conformity  to  which 
music  takes  rank  as  the  typically  perfect  art.  If  music  be 
the  ideal  of  all  art  whatever,  precisely  because  in  music  it  is 
impossible  to  distinguish  the  form  from  the  substance  or 
matter,  the  subject  from  the  expression,  then,  literature,  by 
finding  its  specific  excellence  in  the  absolute  correspondence 
of  the  term  to  its  import,  will  be  but  fulfilling  the  condition 
of  all  artistic  quality  in  things  everywhere,  of  all  good  art. 

Good  art,  but  not  necessarily  great  art;  the  distinction  be- 
tween great  art  and  good  art  depending  immediately,  as  re- 
gards literature  at  all  events,  not  on  its  form,  but  on  the  matter. 
Thackeray's  Esmond,  surely,  is  greater  art  than  Vanity  Fair, 
by  the  greater  dignity  of  its  interests.  It  is  on  the  quality 
of  the  matter  it  informs  or  controls,  its  compass,  its  variety, 
its  alliance  to  great  ends,  or  the  depth  of  the  note  of  revolt, 
or  the  largeness  of  hope  in  it,  that  the  greatness  of  literary 
art  depends,  as  The  Divine  Comedy,  Paradise  Lost,  Les 
Miserables,  The  English  Bible,  are  great  art.  Given  the  con- 
ditions I  have  tried  to  explain  as  constituting  good  art;  — 
the^,  if  it  be  devoted  further  to  the  increase  of  men's  happi- 
ness, to  the  redemption  of  the  oppressed,  or  the  enlargement 
of  our  sympathies  with  each  other,  or  to  such  presentment  of 
new  or  old  truth  about  ourselves  and  our  relation  to  the 
world  as  may  ennoble  and  fortify  us  in  our  sojourn  here,  or 
immediately,  as  with  Dante,  to  the  glory  of  God,  it  will  be 
also  great  art;  if,  over  and  above  those  qualities  I  summed 
up  as  mind  and  soul  —  that  color  and  mystic  perfume,  and 
that  reasonable  structure,  it  has  something  of  the  soul  of 
humanity  in  it,  and  finds  its  logical,  its  architectural  place, 
in  the  great  structure  of  human  life. 

•  So  also  Leigh  Hunt  (What  is  Poetry?  Professor  Albert  S.  Cook's 
edition,  Ginn,  1893,  p.  38):  "Verse  is  the  final  proof  to  the  poet  that  his 
mastery  over  his  art  is  complete." 


PA  TER  4 1 3 

'The  distinction  passes  generally  for  De  Quincey's;  but,  as  he  him- 
self pointed  out,  De  Quincey  took  it  originally  from  Wordsworth ;  see  his 
Works,  ed.  Masson,  Vol.  lo,  p.  48,  foot-note,  and  Wordsworth,  Prelude, 
Book  V,  1.  425. 

^  "  Pleasurable  ":  a  "  barbarous"  word,  though  sanctioned  by  the  usage 
not  merely  of  Pater,  but  of  Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  Carlyle,  and  others. 

"Esmond" :  in  the  Fortnightly  stands  "Transformation";  i.e. 
Hawthorne's  Marble  Faun.  The  substitution  of  Thackeray's  novel  is 
probably  in  the  interests  of  "structural  unity"  in  the  smaller  elements  of 
composition;  see  Pater's  reference  to  Esmond  at  the  end  of  the  essay 
(p.  412).  Minor  textual  variants  may  also  be  traced  in  the  essay  between 
the  first  and  subsequent  imprints  of  Appreciations. 

*  Buffon;  see  above,  p.  178. 


414  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

XVII 

FERDINAND   BRUNETIERE    (1849-1906) 
The  French  Mastery  of  Style*  (1897) 

[Brunetiere's  article,  translated  from  the  author's  manu- 
script by  Mr.  Irving  Babbitt,  appeared  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
for  October,  1897  (Vol.  80,  pp.  442-451).  It  has  not  been  re- 
published elsewhere. 

As  the  French  critic  whose  opinion  carried,  latterly,  most 
weight  in  America,  Brunetiere  should  obtain  a  welcome  re- 
hearing upon  a  matter  where  his  studies  made  him  so  com- 
petent to  judge.  With  no  injustice  to  his  knowledge  of  other 
periods  in  French  literature,  it  may  be  said  that  he  was 
exceptionally  well  versed  in  the  authors  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  above  all  in  the  theologians,  whose  controversial 
writings  show  the  commencement  of  modern  French  style  in 
prose.  This  familiarity,  for  example  with  Bossuet,  seems  to 
have  reacted  upon  Brunetiere's  own  habit  of  expression.  His 
style  tolerates  a  sentence  on  the  whole  longer  and  more  in- 
volved than  is  customary  in  France  to-day;  other,  less  ob- 
trusive reminiscences  of  an  elder  mode  may  be  felt  in  him 
rather  than  explained. 

Since  his  death,  Dec.  9,  1906,  notices  of  Brunetiere  have 
appeared  in  the  Revue  des  Deux  Mondes  (Dec.  15,  1906, 
following  p.  120),  the  Nation  (Dec.  15,  1906,  Apr.  4,  1907), 
and  the  Atlantic  Monthly  (April,  1907). 

There  is  an  important  article  on  Style  by  the  same  author 
in  La  Grande  Encyclopedic  (Vol.  30,  pp.  558-562).] 

"The  natural  bent,  the  need,  the  mania,  to  influence  others 
is  the  most  salient  trait  of  French  character.  .  .  .  Every 
people  has  its  mission;  this  is  the  mission  of  the  French. 
The  most  trifling  idea  they  launch  upon  Europe  is  a  batter- 
ing-ram driven  forward  by  thirty  million  men.     Ever  hunger- 

*  With  the  permission  of  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin  and  Company, 
publishers  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 


BR  UNE  TikRE  4 1  5 

ing  for  success  and  influence,  the  French  would  seem  to  h've 
only  to  gratify  this  craving;  and  inasmuch  as  a  nation  can- 
not have  been  given  a  mission  w^ithout  the  means  of  fulfilling 
it,  the  French  have  been  given  this  means  in  their  language, 
by  which  they  rule  much  more  effectually  than  by  their  arms, 
though  their  arms  have  shaken  the  world."  This  praise, 
possibly  the  highest  the  French. language  has  ever  received, 
cannot  be  said  to  emanate  from  one  who  was  an  entire  for- 
eigner: he  was  a  native  of  Savoy,  and  everybody  knows  what 
affection,  frequently  chiding  and  captious,  the  Savoyards, 
from  Vaugelas  to  Francois  Buloz,  have  shown  toward  the 
French  language.  On  the  other  hand,  it  can  hardly  be 
called  the  utterance  of  a  Frenchman,  coming  as  it  does  from 
Joseph  de  Maistre,  ambassador  from  his  Majesty  the  King 
of  Sardinia  to  his  Majesty  the  Tsar  of  all  the  Russias :  and 
that  is  why  I  venture  to  quote  it.  There  are  things  that 
modesty  forbids  us  to  say  ourselves,  but  which  we  have  the 
right  to  appropriate  when  others  have  said  them,  especially 
when  their  way  of  saying  them  makes  us  feel  that  there  is  a 
little  jealousy  mingled  with  the  genuineness  of  their  admira- 
tion. This  same  Joseph  de  Maistre  writes  furthermore:  "  I 
recollect  having  read  formerly  a  letter  of  the  famous  architect 
Christopher  Wren,  in  which  he  discusses  the  right  dimensions 
for  a  church.  He  fixes  upon  them  solely  with  reference  to 
the  carrying  power  of  the  human  voice,  and  he  sets  the  limits 
beyond  which  the  voice  for  any  English  ear  becomes  in- 
audible; '  but,'  he  says  on  this  point,  '  a  French  orator  would 
make  himself  heard  farther  away,  his  pronunciation  being 
firmer  and  more  distinct.'  "  And  finally,  de  Maistre  adds 
by  way  of  comment  on  this  quotation:  "What  Wren  has 
said  of  oral  speech  appears  to  me  still  truer  of  that  far  more 
penetrating  speech  heard  in  books.  The  speech  of  Frenchmen 
is  always  audible  farther  away."     Let  us  take  his  word  for  it. 


4l6  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

What,  then,  is  the  reason  of  this  fact?  It  is  a  question 
which  has  seemed  to  me  worth  discussing,  now  that  all  the 
great  American  universities  are  organizing  their  "  depart- 
ments of  Romance  languages  "  on  a  more  liberal  scale  than 
they  have  done  hitherto.  If,  speaking  from  the  other  side 
of  the  Atlantic,  I  could  give  them  good  reasons  for  persever- 
ing in  this  path,  I  should  possibly  be  rendering  them  a  service. 
For,  these  reasons  being  purely  literary,  the  American  uni- 
versities would  doubtless  then  grant  to  "  literature  "  proper 
an  attention  that  several  of  them  seem  up  to  the  present  to 
have  reserved  entirely  for  "  philology."  We,  for  our  part, 
should  gain  through  coming  into  closer  relations  with  these 
universities,  and  thereby  with  what  is  best  in  the  American 
democracy.  It  is  hard  to  see  who  in  Europe  or  America 
could  take  exception  to  this  exchange  of  kindly  offices,  at 
least  if  it  be  true  that  the  French  language  and  literature 
possess  the  distinctive  features  which  I  shall  attempt  to 
show. 

Let  us  put  aside  at  the  start  all  thought  of  any  superiority 
in  French  as  a  natural  organism  over  other  languages,  es- 
pecially over  the  other  Romance  languages.  If  our  language 
has  its  native  points  of  excellence,  other  languages  have  theirs : 
Italian,  for  instance,  is  sweeter,  and  Spanish  more  sonorous. 
Sonorousness  and  sweetness  are  neither  of  them  points  of 
excellence  which  we  can  afford  to  despise  in  a  language;  and 
because  they  are  to  a  certain  extent  "  physical,"  they  are  none 
the  less  real  or  unusual.  A  fine  voice,  too,  is  only  a  fine 
voice;  and  yet  how  much  does  it  not  contribute  to  the  success 
of  a  great  orator.  It  may  even  be  said  almost  literally  of 
Demosthenes  and  Cicero  that  they  are  the  "  greatest  voices  " 
that  have  been  heard  among  men.  It  must  be  confessed  that 
the  physical  properties  of  the  French  language  are  not  at  all 
out  of  the  common;    and  the  truth  is  that,  before  turning 


BRUNETIERE  417 

them  to  account,  most  of  our  great  writers  in  prose  and  verse 
have  had  a  preliminary  struggle  to  surmount  them. 

We  must  not  be  led,  either,  into  thinking  that  we  have 
had  greater  writers  than  the  English  or  the  Germans.  This 
would  be  mere  impertinence.  If  we  could  be  tempted  into 
believing  it,  all  the  labor  of  criticism  for  more  than  a  hun- 
dred years  would  have  been  thrown  away,  Victor  Hugo  is  a 
great  poet,  but  Goethe  and  Shakespeare  are  great  poets  also. 
Genius  has  no  national  preferences. 

But  what  may  be  truthfully  said  is  that  in  France,  from 
the  very  start,  and  especially  during  the  last  four  hundred 
years,  everybody  has  conspired  to  make  of  the  French  lan- 
guage that  instrument  of  international  exchange  and  universal 
communication  which  it  has  become.  Noble  ladies,  from 
Marguerite  de  Valois,  author  of  the  Heptameron,  to  the 
Marquise  de  Rambouillet;  ministers  of  state,  like  the  Cardinal 
de  Richelieu;  princes  and  kings,  Francis  I,  Charles  IX  (the 
protector  and  rival  of  Ronsard),  Louis  XIV,  have  formed, 
as  it  were,  part  of  a  conspiracy  which  had  as  its  definite 
object  to  gain  for  French  universal  acceptance  in  place  of 
the  classics.  The  French  Academy  was  founded  with  no 
other  purpose;  its  charter  attests  the  fact,  as  also  its  member- 
ship, which,  happily,  has  never  been  entirely  confined  to  men 
of  letters.  Our  writers,  in  order  to  conform  to  this  design, 
have  usually  consented  to  give  up  a  part  of  their  originality. 
It  has  not  been  enough  for  them  to  understand  themselves, 
or  to  be  understood  by  their  countrymen  and  within  the  limits 
of  their  frontiers.  They  beheved  long  before  Rivarol  said  it 
—  in  an  Essay  on  the  Universal  Diffusion  of  the  French 
Language,  a  subject  for  the  best  treatment  of  which  the 
Berlin  Academy  had  offered  a  prize  in  1781  — ^  that  "  what 
is  not  clear  is  not  French."  To  achieve  this  transparent  and 
radiant  clearness,  to  make  some  approach,  at  least,  to  this 


41 8  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

universal  diffusion,  so  that  in  Germany  and  England,  in  Italy 
and  America,  the  knowledge  of  the  French  language  is  a  sign 
of  culture,  a  mark  of  education,  — ■  to  arrive  at  these  results, 
I  do  not  deny  that  they  have  been  forced  to  make  some 
sacrifices.  These,  however,  I  shall  choose  to  ignore  for  the 
present,  and  I  propose  simply  to  discuss  here  two  or  three  of 
the  principal  means  that  these  conspirators  of  a  somewhat 
unusual  kind  have  taken  to  compass  their  end. 


In  the  first  place,  for  three  or  four  hundred  years  back, 
French  writers,  and  we  the  public  in  common  with  them, 
have  treated  our  language  as  a  work  of  art.  Let  us  have  a 
clear  understanding  of  the  meaning  of  this  word  "  art."  The 
Greeks  in  antiquity,  the  Italians  of  the  Renaissance,  gave  an 
artistic  stamp  or  character  to  the  commonest  utensils,  —  to 
an  earthen  jar  or  a  tin  plate,  an  amphora,  a  ewer.  It  is  a 
stamp  of  a  similar  kind  that  our  writers  from  the  time  of 
Ronsard  have  tried  to  give  the  French  language.  They  have 
thought  that  every  language,  apart  from  the  services  it  renders 
in  the  ordinary  usage  and  every-day  intercourse  of  life,  is 
capable  of  receiving  an  artistic  form,  and  this  form  they  have 
desired  to  bestow  upon  our  own  language.  Read  with  refer- 
ence to  this  point  the  manifesto  of  the  Pleiade,  The  Defense 
and  Ennoblement  of  the  French  Language  by  Joachim  du 
Bellay,  which  bears  the  date  of  1549,  and  you  will  see  that 
such  is  throughout  not  merely  its  general  spirit,  but  its  special 
and  particular  object.  Since  then  not  only  have  French 
prose  writers  and  poets  had  the  same  ambition,  but  all  their 
readers,  even  princes  themselves,  have  encouraged  it,  have 
made  it  almost  a  question  of  state;  and  the  consequence  is 
that  no  literary  revolution  or  transformation  has  taken  place 
in  France  which  did  not  begin  by  being,  knowingly  and 


BR  UNE  TIL.  KE  4 1 9 

deliberately,  a  transformation  or  a  modification  of  the  lan- 
guage. This  is  what  Malhcrbe,  after  Ronsard  and  in  opposi- 
tion to  him,  desired  to  do:  namely,  to  give  to  the  French 
language  a  precision  and  a  clearness  of  outline,  a  musical 
cadence,  a  harmony  of  phrase,  and  finally  a  fullness  of  sense 
and  sound,  which  seemed  to  him  to  be  still  lacking  in  the 
work  of  Ronsard;  and  along  withMalherbe,  by  other  means, 
but  in  a  parallel  direction,  this  was  likewise  the  aim  of  the 
precieuses.  The  same  is  true  of  Boileau,  as  well  as  of  Moliere. 
It  was  through  language,  since  it  was  by  the  means  of  style 
and  the  criticism  of  style,  as  is  seen  in  works  like  the  Satires 
and  the  Precieuses  Ridicules,  that  they  brought  the  art  of 
their  time  back  to  the  imitation  of  nature.  Even  in  our  own 
days,  what  was  romanticism,  what  were  realism  and  natural- 
ism, at  the  start?  The  answer  is  always  the  same:  they  were 
theories  of  style  before  being  doctrines  of  art;  ways  of  writing 
before  being  ways  of  feeling  or  thinking;  a  reform  of  the 
language  and  an  emancipation  of  the  vocabulary,  the  striving 
after  a  greater  flexibility  of  syntax,  before  it  was  known  what 
use  would  be  made  of  these  conquests. 

There  is,  then,  in  French,  in  the  method  of  handling  the 
language,  a  continuous  artistic  tradition.  By  very  different 
and  sometimes  even  opposing  means,  our  writers  have  desired 
to  please,  in  the  best  sense  of  the  word,  —  to  please  them- 
selves first  of  all,  to  please  the  public,  to  please  foreigners; 
to  make  of  their  language  a  universal  language,  analogous  in 
a  fashion  to  the  language  of  music,  to  that  of  sounds  or  colors; 
and  as  the  crowning  triumph  to  make  of  a  page  of  Bossuet 
or  Racine,  for  instance,  a  monument  of  art,  for  quahties 
of  the  same  order  as  a  statue  of  Michael  Angelo  or  a  paint- 
ing of  Raphael. 

From  our  great  writers,  and  the  cultivated  and  intelligent 
readers  who  are  their  natural  judges,  this  concern  for  art  has 


420  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

spread  to  the  whole  race,  if  indeed  it  were  not  truer  to  say 
that  it  was  a  matter  of  instinct.  Who  is  not  famihar  with 
the  phrase,  "  Duas  res  .  .  .  gens  Galhca  industriosissime 
persequitur :  rem  mihtarem  et  argute  loqui  "?  "Argute 
loqui,"  —  this  is  to  be  artistic  in  one's  speech,  and  this  every- 
body has  been  and  tries  to  be  among  us;  and  nowhere,  surely, 
possibly  not  even  in  Greece,  in  the  Athenian  cafes,  would  you 
come  across  more  "  elegant  talkers  "  (beaux  parkurs)  than 
in  France:  they  are  to  be  met  with  in  the  villages;  they  are 
to  be  found  in  the  workshops.  Some  of  them,  I  am  well 
aware,  are  insufferable  withal,  as  for  example  the  druggist 
Homais  in  Madame  Bovary,  and  again  the  illustrious  Gau- 
dissart  in  the  Comedie  Humaine  of  Honore  de  Balzac.  But 
what  medal  is  without  its  reverse?  If  we  have  so  many 
'*  elegant  talkers,"  it  is  because,  in  our  whole  system  of  public 
education,  and  even  in  our  primary  schools,  this  concern  for 
art  prevails.  The  fact  is  worthy  of  remark.  What  our  little 
children  learn  in  the  schools  under  the  name  of  orthography 
—  the  word  itself,  when  connected  with  its  etymology,  ex- 
presses the  idea  clearly  enough  —  is  to  see  in  their  language 
a  work  of  art,  since  it  is  to  recognize  and  enjoy  what  is  well 
written.  It  is  not  possible,  indeed,  to  fix  in  the  memory  the 
outer  form  of  a  word,  its  appearance,  its  physiognomy,  so  as 
not  to  confuse  it  with  any  other  word,  without  its  exact  mean- 
ing being  also  stamped  in  the  mind. 

In  this  respect,  the  oddities,  or,  as  we  sometimes  call  them, 
the  "  Chinese  puzzles  "  {chinoiseries)  of  orthography  help  to 
preserve  shades  of  thought.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
peculiarities  of  syntax.  You  will  not  teach  children  that 
Goliath  was  a  tall  man  {im  homme  grand),  and  David  a  great 
man  (un  grand  homme),  without  teaching  them  at  the  same 
time  a  number  of  ideas  that  are  epitomized  in  these  two  ways 
of  placing  the    adjective.     You  will   not    explain   to    little 


BRUXETIEKE  42 1 

Walloons  or  to  little  Picards  that  a  honnet  blanc  is  a  white 
cap,  and  that  a  blanc  bonnet  is  a  woman,  in  their  patois,  with- 
out their  deriving  some  profit  even  from  this  pastime  or  play- 
ing on  words.  Need  I  speak  of  the  rules  of  our  participles, 
—  those  participles  which,  as  the  vaudeville  says,  are  always 
getting  one  into  a  muddle,*  so  much  apparent  fancifukiess 
and  caprice  there  is  in  their  agreements;  and  is  it  necessary  for 
me  to  show  that  the  most  delicate  analysis  of  the  relations  of 
ideas  is  implied  in  these  very  rules  ?  The  whole  question  here 
is  not  whether  our  farmers  or  our  workingmen  have  need  of 
all  this  knowledge,  whether  it  would  not  be  more  profitable 
for  them  to  learn  other  things,  and  whether  they  might  not 
give  less  time  to  picking  up  the  peculiarities  of  orthography 
or  the  exceptions  of  French  grammar.  I  am  not  passing 
judgment;  I  am  simply  taking  cognizance  of  the  facts,  and 
trying  to  arrive  at  an  explanation.  Whatever  quahties,  then, 
are  to  be  peculiarly  admired  in  French,  we  may  say  with- 
out hesitation,  are  due  less  to  the  language  itself,  to  its 
original  nature,  than  to  the  intensive  cultivation  which  it 
has  always  received  at  every  step  of  our  educational  system, 
and  which,  for  my  part,  I  hope  it  may  long  continue  to 
receive. 

Not  that  this  cultivation  may  not  have  and  has  not  had 
its  dangers,  like  those  to  which  "euphuism,"  "Marinism," 
and  "  Gongorism  "  have,  in  their  time,  exposed  Enghsh, 
Itahan,  and  Spanish.  So  much  importance  must  not  be 
attached  to  form  as  to  lead  to  the  sacrifice  of  substance; 
more  than  one  writer  in  French  could  be  named  who  has 
fallen  into  this  mistake,  —  for  it  is  a  mistake.  They  are  the 
writers  to  whom  we  have  given  the  name  of  precieux.  How- 
ever, before  condemning  them  in  a  lump  on  the  authority  of 

*  Ces  participes  avec  lesquels,  comme  dit  le  vaudeville,  on  ne  sait  jamais 
quel  parti  prendre. 


422  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  TV  LITERATURE 

Molierc,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  we  find  in  their  number 
men  like  Fontenelle,  Marivaux,  Massillon,  and  Montesquieu. 
But  it  remains  true  that  to  treat  a  language  as  a  work  of  art 
is  to  run  the  risk  of  seeing  in  it,  sooner  or  later,  only  itself. 
Its  words  take  on  a  mystical  value,  independent  and  entirely 
apart,  as  it  were,  from  the  ideas  they  are  meant  to  convey. 
"  Examine,"  said  Baudelaire,  "  this  word,"  —  any  ordinary 
word.  "  Is  it  not  of  a  glowing  vermilion,  and  is  the  heavenly 
azure  as  blue  as  that  word?  Look:  has  not  this  word  the 
gentle  lustre  of  the  morning  stars,  and  that  one  the  livid 
paleness  of  the  moon?"  And  Flaubert  has  written:  "I 
recollect  that  my  heart  throbbed  violently  .  .  .  from  looking 
at  a  wall  of  the  Acropolis,  a  perfectly  bare  wall !  .  .  .  The 
question  occurs  to  me,  then.  Cannot  a  book,  quite  apart  from 
what  it  says,  produce  the  same  effect?  Is  there  not  an  in- 
trinsic virtue  in  the  choiceness  of  the  materials,  in  the  nicety 
with  which  they  are  put  together,  in  the  pohsh  of  the  surfaces, 
in  the  harmony  of  the  total  effect?  "  They  both  failed  to 
remember  one  thing,  —  which  is  that  words  express  ideas 
before  having  a  "  color  "  or  "  virtue  "  peculiar  to  themselves, 
and  that  they  are  precise  and  luminous  only  with  the  clear- 
ness or  the  precision  of  these  ideas.  But  Flaubert  and 
Baudelaire  are  consistent  with  the  principles  of  their  school, 
and  they  show  us  what  a  man  comes  to  when  he  no  longer 
sees  in  language  anything  more  than  a  work  of  art.  Like 
them,  he  values  words  for  themselves,  for  their  appearance, 
for  the  sound  they  render,  for  various  reasons  which  have 
nothing  to  do  with  the  art  of  thinking.  He  detects  genius  in 
the  turn  of  a  phrase.  Style  becomes  something  intrinsic  and 
mysterious,  existing  in  and  for  itself.  Virtuosity,  which  is 
only  the  indifference  to  the  content  of  forms,  gets  possession 
of  art,  makes  a  plaything  of  it,  perverts  it  or  corrupts  it;  and 
through  the  sheer  desire  "  to  write  well,"  one  finally  comes, 


BRUNETIERE  423 

as  George  Sand  pointed  out  to  Flaubert,  to  write  only  for  a 
dozen  initiates;  even  they  do  not  always  understand  one, 
and  besides,  they  never  admire  one  for  the  reasons  one  would 
prefer. 

n 

In  what  way  may  we  avoid  this  danger  ?  Is  it  possible  to 
point  out  several  ways,  or  is  there  perhaps  only  one?  In 
any  case,  we  can  easily  deiine  and  characterize  the  one  our 
great  writers  have  taken,  although  not  always  of  their  own 
accord.  They  have  understood,  or  have  been  made  to  under- 
stand, that  language,  though  a  work  of  art,  still  continues  to 
be  above  all  a  medium  for  the  communication  of  thoughts 
and  feelings,  —  what  may  be  called  their  instrument  of  ex- 
change, their  current  coin;  and  that  consequently  perfect 
art  cannot  be  conceived  or  sought  for  apart  from  those  attri- 
butes which  are  the  attributes  of  thought  itself. 

In  French,  as  in  English  or  German,  and  I  presume  also 
in  Chinese,  both  prose  writers  and  poets  have  always  tended 
to  make  of  their  art  an  image  or  expression  of  themselves. 
It  is  for  this  very  reason  that  they  are  writers,  —  because  the 
things  that  had  been  said  did  not  satisfy  them,  or  because 
they  wished  to  say  them  in  another  way,  or  else  to  say  things 
that  had  not  been  said.  Only  in  France,  the  court,  "  society," 
criticism,  have  reminded  them  that  if  they  wrote,  it  was  in 
order  to  be  understood.  From  Ronsard  to  Victor  Hugo,  they 
have  had  imposed  upon  them,  as  a  rule,  the  twofold  condi- 
tion to  remain  themselves,  and  at  the  same  time  to  talk  the 
language  of  everybody.  The  interest  which  they  had  inspired 
in  a  whole  people  for  the  things  of  literature  turned  in  some 
sort  against  thrm.  Having  themselves  invited  all  the  culti- 
vated minds  about  them  to  become  judges  of  art,  they  were 
not  allowed,  when  the  fancy  came  over  them  later,  to  arro- 


424  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

gate  to  themselves  the  right  to  be  the  sole  judges  of  art. 
Public  opinion,  in  return  for  the  admiration  and  applause 
they  sohcited  from  it,  felt  constrained  to  ask  of  them  certain 
definite  concessions,  —  concessions  which  they  consented  to 
make;  and  doubtless  they  were  right  in  so  doing,  after  all, 
since  they  were  thus  enabled  to  give,  not  only  to  French 
hterature,  but  to  the  French  language,  that  social  character 
which  it  possesses  in  so  high  a  degree. 

It  was  in  this  wise,  in  fact,  that  there  found  its  way  into 
our  literature  —  or  if  the  reader  prefers,  into  our  rhetoric  — 
that  tenet  which  Buffon  summed  up  at  the  end  of  the  classic 
period  in  the  recommendation  never  to  name  things  except 
by  "  the  most  general  terms."  ^  Those  who  have  ridiculed 
this  phrase  have  misunderstood  it ;  they  have  quibbled  about 
the  words;  they  have  feigned  to  believe,  and  possibly  they 
really  have  believed,  that  the  most  general  terms  are  the  most 
abstract,  the  vaguest,  the  most  colorless,  the  opposite  of  the 
exact,  appropriate,  and  special  term.  Yet  it  would  have 
been  enough  for  them  to  read  more  carefully  Buffon  himself, 
and  Voltaire,  and  Racine,  and  Moliere,  and  Bossuet,  and 
Pascal !  They  would  then  have  seen  that  the  most  general 
terms  are  the  terms  of  ordinary  usage,  those  in  everybody's 
vocabulary,  —  terms  that  are  intelligible  without  any  need 
of  going  to  the  dictionary,  that  are  not  the  peculiar  dialect 
of  a  trade  or  the  jargon  of  a  coterie.  "  If  in  talking  of  savages 
or  of  the  ancient  Franks,"  Taine  writes  somewhere,  "  I  say 
the  '  battle-axe,'  everyone  understands  at  once;  if  I  say  the 
'  tomahawk  '  or  the  '  francisca,'  a  great  many  people  will 
fancy  I  am  talking  Teutonic  or  Iroquois."  kn<\  this  strikes 
him  as  extremely  amusing.  It  is  natural  that  it  should, 
harboring,  as  he  does,  the  superstition  of  "  local  color  "  and 
of  the  "  technical  term,"  But  he  is  wrong,  and  to  prove  it 
I  need  only  seven  lines  of  Boileau  from  the  tenth  Satire :  — 


BRUNETIERE  425 

"  Le  doux  charme  pour  toi  de  voir,  chaque  joumee, 
De  nobles  champions  ta  femme  environnee, 

S'en  aller  mediter  une  vole  au  jeu  d'hombre, 
S'ecrier  sur  un  as  mal  a  propos  jete, 
Se  plaindre  d'un  gdno  qu'on  n'a  point  ecoute, 
Ou  querellant  tout  bas  le  del  qu'elle  regarde, 
A  la  bete  gcmir  d'un  roi  venu  sans  garde." 

Whereby,  it  seems  to  me,  two  things  are  made  plain:  the 
one,  that  upon  occasion  Boileau  —  Boilcau  himself !  —  called 
things  by  their  names,  did  not  shrink  from  technical  terms; 
and  the  other,  that  in  thus  using  technical  terms  in  his  verse, 
and  because  he  did  use  them,  he  has  rendered  himself  unin- 
telligible to  everyone  who  is  not  acquainted  with  the  game 
of  ombre.  Is  a  cultivated  man  required  to  know  the  game  of 
ombre?  Therein  hes  the  danger  of  technical  terms  In  the 
first  place,  few  persons  understand  them ;  and  when  it  happens 
that  everybody  does  understand  them,  they  are  no  longer 
technical.  This  is  what  Buffon  meant:  Use  general  terms, 
because  if  you  do  not  use  them,  you  condemn  yourself  by 
your  own  act  to  be  understood  by  only  a  small  number  of 
readers;  because  technical  terms,  in  so  far  as  they  are  technical, 
are  a  stumbling-block  in  the  way  of  expressing  general  truths, 
which  alone  constitute  the  domain  of  literature.^  Nay,  more: 
try  by  means  of  general  terms  to  bring  into  this  very  domain 
as  much  as  possible  of  what  is  technical;  do  what  Descartes 
did  for  philosophy,  Pascal  for  theology,  Montesquieu  for 
politics,  or  what  I  myself,  Buffon,  have  done  for  natural  his- 
tory. —  Such  has  been  the  practice  of  our  great  writers;  and 
doubtless  nothing  has  contributed  more  to  the  success  of  the 
French  language  than  its  having  become,  thanks  to  them, 
the  best  fitted  for  the  expression  of  general  ideas. 

It  has  Hkewise  become  the  most  "  oratorical  ";  and  by  this 
word  I  do  not  mean  at  all  the  most  eloquent  or  the  most 


426  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

grandiloquent,  —  Spanish  might  claim  this  honor,  —  but,  on 
the  contrary,  the  nearest  to  conversation  and  to  the  spoken 
language.  We  are  sometimes  told  that  we  must  not  write 
as  we  talk.  This  is  a  mistake,  against  which,  in  case  of  need, 
our  whole  classic  Uterature  would  protest.  To  write  as  we 
talk  is  precisely  what  we  should  do,  with  the  proviso,  of 
course,  that  we  talk  correctly.  Vaugelas,  who,  as  everybody 
knows,  was  the  great  French  grammarian  of  the  classic  period, 
has  said  so  expressly:  "The  spoken  word  is  the  first  in  order 
and  in  dignity,  inasmuch  as  the  written  word  is  only  its 
image,  as  the  other  is  the  image  of  thought."  Possibly  this 
may  seem  an  odd  bit  of  reasoning;  it  may  even  strike  one  as 
an  amusing  application  of  the  law  of  primogeniture  to 
criticism;  and  one  is  quite  free  to  deny  that  the  dignity  of 
the  different  kinds  of  composition  and  literary  forms  is  to 
be  measured  by  their  age.  But  what,  on  the  other  hand,  is 
certain,  and  what  I  recollect  to  have  pointed  out  more  than 
once,  in  conformity  with  Vaugelas's  suggestion,  is  that  all 
the  blunders  with  which  puristical  and  pedantic  grammarians 
are  fond  of  reproaching  Moliere  and  La  Fontaine,  Pascal  and 
Bossuet,  are  not  even  irregularities;  on  the  contrary,  they  are 
seen  to  be  the  most  natural  and  expressive  form  of  their 
thought,  as  soon  as  we  "  speak  "  their  comedies  or  sermons 
instead  of  "  reading  "  them.  In  verse,  as  in  prose,  the  grand 
style  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  a  spoken  style.  Its 
merits  are  the  merits  of  the  conversation  of  well-bred  people. 
Or  again,  to  use  the  language  o^  experimental  psychology 
of  the  present  day,  if  it  is  true  that  writers  are  to  be  divided 
into  "  hearers  "  (auditifs)  who  hear  themselves  speak,  and 
"  visualizers  "  (visuels)  who  see  themselves  write,  the  greater 
part  of  the  French  writers  of  the  seventeenth  century  belong 
to  the  first  class.  The  ear,  and  not  the  eye,  was  their  guide. 
It  was  not  of  their  paper  that  they  thought  in  writing,  but  of 


BRUNETI^RE  427 

a  body  of  hearers;  and  just  as  they  use  the  most  general 
terms  to  make  themselves  better  understood  by  these  hearers, 
so  they  strive  to  give  to  their  "  discourse,"  as  they  call  it,  the 
swing,  the  flexibihty,  and,  it  would  not  be  too  much  to  say, 
the  familiar  tone  of  conversation.  Their  way  of  arranging 
this  discourse,  which  seems  artificial  to  us,  is,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  most  natural,  since  it  follows  the  very  movement 
of  the  thought.  Their  long  periods,  which  we  suppose  to  be 
premeditated  and  balanced  by  dint  of  laborious  application, 
are,  in  truth,  only  the  necessary  form  of  sustained  improvisa- 
tion. If  they  happen  to  raise  their  voices,  as  do  Pascal  in 
his  Thoughts  and  Bossuet  in  his  Sermons,  it  is  because  the 
grandeur  or  the  seriousness  of  the  subject  calls  for  it;  and 
as  a  matter  of  fact,  neither  God  nor  death  is  to  be  spoken  of 
lightly.  But  Moliere  in  his  great  comedies  and  La  Fontaine 
in  his  Fables  give  us  the  illusion  of  what  is  least  set  and 
formal  in  daily  conversation.  "You  might  think  that  you 
were  there  yourself;  "  you  will  see,  too,  if  you  scrutinize  them 
closely,  that  their  sentence  structure  does  not  differ  from 
that  of  Bossuet  and  Pascal.  That  is  what  is  meant  when 
French  is  said  to  be  of  all  modern  languages  the  most  "  ora- 
torical," the  most  similar  when  written  —  I  mean,  of  course, 
when  well  written  —  to  what  it  is  when  spoken,  and  con- 
sequently the  most  natural. 

It  is  also  "  the  most  exact  and  the  clearest ":  the  clearest, 
because  what  is  obscure  is  precisely  what  is  pecuhar,  special, 
or  technical,  the  speech  of  the  artilleryman  or  that  of  the 
sailor,  the  dialect  of  the  factory  or  workshop;  the  most  exact, 
because  conversation  would  become  a  monologue  if  its  finest 
shades  of  meaning  were  not  caught,  understood,  and  taken 
up  immediately  and  as  fast  as  the  words  fall  from  the  lips. 
We  cannot  wait  a  quarter  of  an  hour  to  laugh  at  a  joke,  and 
an  epigram  or  a  madrigal  should  have  no  need  of  commentary. 


428  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

This  clearness,  moreover,  is  a  result  of  the  oratorical  char- 
acter of  the  French  language  as  it  has  just  been  deiincd.  We 
must  think  of  other  men,  since  we  are  speaking  to  them  or 
for  them,  and  spare  no  effort  to  give  them  ready  access  to 
our  thought.  This,  again,  is  thoroughly  French.  Great 
winters,  especially  poets  and  philosophers,  Carlyle  and  Brown- 
ing in  Enghsh,  Schelling  and  even  Goethe  in  German,  have 
thought  less  of  being  intelligible  to  others  than  to  themselves. 
"  I  have  just  finished  reading  Sordello,"  wrote  Carlyle  to  his 
wife,  "  without  being  able  to  find  out  whether  Sordello  was  a 
poem,  a  city,  or  a  man;  "  and  who  will  deny  that  there  is 
some  obscurity  —  willful  and  dehberate  obscurity,  it  is  true 
—  in  Sartor  Resartus  and  in  the  famous  lectures  on  Hero 
Worship  ?  But  a  French  writer  always  speaks  to  his  reader 
as  he  would  to  a  hearer,  or  to  one  with  whom  he  is  conversing. 
He  believes  with  Boileau  that  "  the  mind  of  man  teems  with 
a  host  of  confused  ideas  and  vague  half-glimpses  of  the 
truth,"  and  also  that  "  we  hke  nothing  better  than  to  have 
one  of  these  ideas  well  elucidated  and  clearly  presented  to  us." 
His  endeavor  is,  not  to  veil  his  thought,  but,  on  the  contrary, 
to  lay  it  bare.  He  does  not  try  to  screen  it,  as  it  were,  from 
the  eyes  of  the  profane,  but,  on  the  contrary,  he  takes  every 
pains  to  render  it  accessible  to  them.  He  does  not  keep  his 
secret  jealously  to  himself,  but  he  desires  rather  to  impart 
it  to  everybody,  —  to  his  countrymen,  to  foreigners,  to  the 
world.  "The  only  good  works,"  Voltaire  has  said,  "are 
those  that  f,nd  their  way  into  foreign  countries  and  are  trans- 
lated there."  Is  it  surprising,  then,  that  French,  the  one 
modem  language  having  this  ambition,  has  succeeded,  so  far 
as  it  has  realized  its  purpose,  only  by  divesting  itself  of  all 
ambiguity;  only  by  filtering  its  ideas,  so  to  speak,  and  ridding 
them  of  all  impurities  which  would  sully  their  transparent 
clearness;  and  sometimes,  too,  by  sacrificing  everything  which 


BRUNETIERE  429 

calls  for  too  close  reflection?  That  is  why,  as  I  said,  its 
precision  and  clearness  did  not  come  to  it  from  any  special 
or  innate  property,  from  any  virtue  which  it  brought  with  it 
as  a  natural  dower,  but  from  the  application,  the  toil,  the 
conscious  effort,  of  its  great  writers.  I  may  add  that  in  this 
particular,  the  greatest  of  these  writers,  reserving  for  them- 
selves other  means  of  originality,  have  followed  rather  than 
guided  public  opinion. 

What  is  indeed  remarkable  about  these  characteristics, 
which  have  come  with  time  to  belong  to  the  French  lan- 
guage, is  that  the  demands  of  pubhc  opinion,  its  watchfulness 
and  persistency,  have  done  no  less  than  the  talent  or  even  the 
genius  of  the  individual  writer  in  fixing  and  estabhshing  them. 
Who  took  the  first  step,  the  pubhc  or  the  writer  ?  It  would 
be  difficult  to  find  an  answer  for  the  question  stated  thus 
barely:  at  one  time  it  has  chanced  to  be  the  public,  at  an- 
other time  the  writer,  who  has  taken  the  lead.  Yet  it  will 
be  observed  that  nearly  all  the  literary  revolutions  in  France 
have  been  anticipated,  desired,  and  encouraged  before  a 
Ronsard,  a  Pascal,  or  a  Hugo  has  appeared  to  bring  them 
about.  The  revolution  once  begun,  the  public  has  always 
taken  pains  to  see  that  the  writer  did  not  indulge  his  idio- 
syncrasies too  far.  Free  to  choose  their  thought,  —  this  our 
writers  have  rarely  been;  they  have  rarely  even  been  more 
than  half  free  in  their  manner  of  expressing  this  thought. 
They  have  been  brought  back,  as  often  as  they  showed  signs 
of  wishing  to  depart  from  it,  to  the  respect  of  an  ideal,  or 
rather  to  the  working  out  of  a  design  which  was  that  of  a 
whole  race.  To  use  the  fine  expression  of  Bossuet,  praising 
this  very  feature  in  Greek  literature,  and  admiring  it  there 
above  all  others,  they  have  been  forced  to  labor  to  "  the 
perfecting  of  civil  life."  They  have  not  been  forced  to  con- 
found art  with  moraUty,  but  they  have  not  been  allowed  to 


430  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

forget  that  in  a  highly  organized  civilization  literature  is  in 
some  sort  a  social  institution.  They  have  even  been  rather 
sharply  reminded  of  the  fact,  at  times,  when  they  have  seemed 
to  forget  it.  What  they  may  have  lost  by  being  forced  to 
bend  to  these  requirements  is  not  at  present  for  me  to  say, 
concerned  as  I  am  with  what  they  have  gained:  this  is  to 
have  made  of  French  literature  a  literature  eminently  human. 

Ill 

"Men's  passions,"  it  has  been  truly  said,  "everywhere 
originally  the  same,  live  amidst  the  ices  of  the  pole  as  well  as 
under  the  tropical  sun.  The  Cossack  Poogatchef  was  ambi- 
tious, like  the  Italian  Masaniello,  and  the  fever  of  love  burns 
the  Kamschatkan  no  less  than  the  African."  These  are  the 
"  original  "  passions  which  the  greatest  of  the  French  writers 
have  studied  in  man.  Other  writers  may  have  portrayed 
them  more  energetically,  but  surely  no  one  has  penetrated 
more  thoroughly  their  innermost  workings,  or  has  had  a 
closer  knowledge  of  their  psychology.  This,  we  venture  to 
say,  is  what  foreigners  like  or  value  in  our  great  writers. 
They  are  vaguely  grateful  to  them,  almost  unconsciously  so, 
for  this  effort  to  observe  and  note  in  man  what  is  most  general 
and  most  permanent.  For  in  this  way  a  particular  literature 
has  passed  beyond  its  own  boundaries,  not  in  order  to  en- 
croach on  the  boundaries  of  other  literatures,  or  to  appropriate 
qualities  which  did  not  belong  to  it,  but  to  adapt  them  to  its 
uses,  and  thereby  establish  itself,  as  it  were,  outside  of  space 
and  time.  It  has  not  specially  affected  either  its  own  ideas 
or  those  of  others;  but  with  the  ideas  of  others  and  with  its 
own  mingled,  fused  together,  and  made  to  correct  one  an- 
other, freed  from  what  was  transitory  in  some  of  them  and 
in  some  local,  and  consequently  in  either  case  accidental, 
French    literature  has  tried  to  attain  to  a   universal  ideal 


BR  UNETIERE  43 1 

which  should  be  as  lasting  as  the  form  in  which  it  was  clothed. 
Is  not  this  very  much  what  Italian  painting  of  the  Renaissance 
and  Greek  sculpture  of  the  great  period  had  done  before  ? 
And  is  not  that  why  the  tragedies  of  Racine  and  the  sermons 
of  Bossuet,  hke  the  marbles  of  Phidias  and  the  paintings  of 
Raphael,  speak  very  nearly  the  same  language  to  everybody? 
Andromaque  is  for  the  drama  what  the  Madonnas  of  Raphael 
are  in  the  history  of  painting;  and  in  like  manner,  the 
Funeral  Oration  of  Henrietta  of  England  holds  a  position  in 
oratory  not  unhke  that  of  the  Daughters  of  Niobe  in  sculpture. 
The  result  has  been  a  tendency  in  French  literature,  and 
secondarily  a  special  fitness  in  the  language,  to  discuss  what 
are  called  nowadays  "  social  problems."  Whether  the  rights 
of  man  in  general,  or  those  of  woman  in  particular,  are  being 
debated,  we  have  in  French  a  large  vocabulary  more  suitable 
than  any  other,  more  precise  and  more  extensive,  to  plead 
for  them;  we  have  what  the  ancients  called  loci,  —  a  store 
of  ready-made  phrases  on  which  the  orator  and  the  publicist 
have  only  to  draw.  If  we  must  turn  to  the  English  for  argu- 
ments and  even  for  words  to  discuss  the  "  rights  of  the  in- 
dividual," and  to  the  Germans  for  reasons  to  uphold  the 
"  rights  of  association,"  no  literature  has  found  more  gener- 
ous accents  than  ours,  nor  any  language  words  more  capable 
of  expressing  the  rights  of  man  so  far  as  he  is  a  subject  for 
justice  and  charity.  No  loftier  strains  of  eloquence  have  ever 
been  uttered,  to  remind  men  of  their  equality  in  the  presence 
of  pain  and  death,  than  by  our  great  preachers,  Bossuet, 
Bourdaloue,  Massillon;  and  this  in  language  of  marvelous 
strength,  simplicity,  and  harmony.  And  where  has  all  that 
can  be  said  to  make  the  powers  of  this  world  tremble  for  the 
validity  of  their  claims  been  expressed  in  a  keener  or  more 
impassioned  form  than  in  some  of  the  pamphlets  of  Voltaire 
or  in  the  fiery  discourses  of  Rousseau? 


432  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

Nothing,  again,  was  more  characteristic  of  the  French  press 
for  many  years,  —  I  say  "  was,"  for  of  late  things  have 
changed  somewhat,  —  as  compared  with  the  Enghsh  or  Ameri- 
can press,  for  example,  than  the  satisfaction,  the  copiousness, 
and  the  perfect  clearness  with  which  it  treated  those  doctrinal 
questions  which  are  the  point  of  contact,  or,  if  I  may  be 
allowed  the  expression,  the  point  of  intersection  of  morals 
and  politics.  The  reason  is  that  French  journalism  found  in 
the  language  an  instrument  ready  for  its  use,  and  had  only 
to  draw  on  the  common  stock  of  hterary  tradition.  If  it 
wanted,  for  instance,  to  show  the  iniquity  of  slavery,  it  had 
only  to  remember  the  Philosophic  History  of  the  two  Indias 
or  the  Spirit  of  Laws.  If  it  wished  to  remind  wealth  of  its 
duties,  it  could  consult,  not  Rousseau  merely,  but  Massillon 
in  his  sermon  on  Dives,  or  Bossuet  in  his  sermon  on  the 
Eminent  Dignity  of  the  Poor.  Rather,  it  had  no  need  of 
consulting  the  latter  or  remembering  the  former;  the  dic- 
tionary of  every- day  speech  was  sufficient.  Two  hundred 
years  of  literature  had  made  social  problems  circulate  in  the 
very  veins  of  the  language ;  it  had  embodied  them  in  its  words. 
It  had  made  of  French  the  conspiracy  spoken  of  by  Joseph 
de  Maistre:  "Omnia  quae  loquitur  populus  iste  conjuratio  est." 
Even  to-day  no  other  language  has  a  power  of  propaganda 
like  French,  and  so  long  as  it  keeps  this  power  we  need  have 
no  fear  of  its  being  neglected.  To  assure  its  position  in  the 
world,  we  have  only  to  guard  against  giving  up  lightly  the 
quahties  it  still  retains;  the  abandonment  of  them,  so  far 
from  being  a  progress,  as  some  of  the  "  symbolists  "  have 
supposed,  would  be  a  retrogression  toward  the  origins. 

Need  I  add  here,  to  reassure  those  who  may  possibly  see 
in  the  French  language  only  an  instrument  of  socialistic 
propaganda,  that  it  is  possible  to  give  a  good  meaning  to 
the  word  "  sociaHsm  ";    or  should  I  not   say   rather    that 


BRUXETIERE  433 

nothing  is  more  dangerous  than  to  leave  the  monopoly  of  the 
word  to  those  who  abuse  it  ?  This  is  to  do  violence  to  its 
etymology  !  It  would  be  better  to  point  out  that  social  prob- 
lems, comprising  as  they  do  all  that  is  of  interest  or  concern 
to  society,  include  in  their  number  the  problems  of  the 
"  polite  world."  And  so,  for  the  same  reasons  that  have 
made  French  the  language  of  social  discussion,  it  has  become, 
in  the  hands  of  our  great  writers,  the  language  of  polite  con- 
versation. This  is  one  of  the  rare  services  we  owe  to  the 
salons,  —  not  to  those  most  in  repute,  the  salon  of  Madame 
Geoffrin  or  that  of  Madame  Tencin,  but,  on  the  contrary,  to 
those  most  ridiculed,  especially  to  the  salon  of  the  Marquise 
de  Rambouillet.  Now,  inasmuch  as  "society,"  or  what  passes 
under  that  name,  has  no  other  object  than  the  putting  in 
common  of  all  that  is  deemed  agreeable,  elegant,  and  noble 
in  life  in  order  to  enjoy  it  more  fully,  we  can  readily  imagine 
what  vivacity,  fiexibihty,  and  ease  two  hundred  years  of  society 
must  have  given  to  the  French  language.  It  was  there,  in 
society,  and  in  the  salons  where  women  held  sway,  that  a 
hterature  till  then  too  pedantic  and  too  masculine  was  forced 
to  bend  and  yield,  to  learn  to  have  respect  for  their  modesty 
or  for  their  dehcacy,  and  to  adorn  itself,  so  to  speak,  with 
some,  at  least,  of  the  virtues  of  their  sex.  It  was  there  that 
due  stress,  and  at  times  a  little  more  than  due  stress,  was  laid 
on  the  art  of  enhancing  what  one  says  by  the  way  of  saying  it. 
It  was  there  that  the  plan  was  formed  to  make  of  French  a 
universal  language  in  place  of  the  classics,  and  to  this  end  to 
give  it  the  qualities  it  still  lacked.  It  was  there,  too,  that  the 
fact  was  realized  that,  language  being  a  human  product,  it 
was  the  duty  of  men  to  rescue  it  from  the  fatality  of  its 
natural  development,  and  to  subordinate  it  not  only  to  the 
requirements  of  art,  but  also  to  the  necessities  of  social 
progress. 


434  THEORIES    OF  ^TYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

In  conclusion,  it  is  well  to  remember  that  Horace's  line  is 

only  half  true :  — 

"  Usus 
Quern  penes  arbitrium  est,  et  jus,  et  norma  loquendi." ' 

No  !  Usage  is  not  wholly  this  master  or  this  capricious  tyrant 
of  language.  Granting  that  it  were,  its  fluctuations  or  its 
pecuharities  would  still  have  their  history,  this  history  its 
reasons,  and  these  reasons  their  explanation ;  or  rather,  usage 
is  only  a  name  which  serves  to  hide  our  ignorance  of  the 
causes,  and  if,  instead  of  taking  it  for  granted,  we  analyze  it, 
languages  are  found  to  be  the  work  of  those  who  write  them. 
The  example  of  French  would  be  enough  to  prove  this.  It 
was  not  naturally  clearer  than  any  other  language ;  it  has  be- 
come so.  It  was  no  better  fitted  than  any  other  language  for 
the  expression  of  general  ideas;  it  has  become  so.  It  was  not 
a  work  of  art  in  the  time  of  the  Strasburg  Oaths  or  the  Canticle 
of  St.  Eulalia,  and  yet  it  has  become  so.  I  have  tried  to  show 
how,  by  what  means,  in  virtue  of  what  united  effort,  and  I 
hope  I  have  made  it  clear.  Americans,  I  fancy,  will  not  be 
sorry  to  see  thus  restored  to  the  domain  of  the  will  what 
philologians  or  linguists  had  unjustly  taken  away  from  it,  — 
if  indeed  this  be  not,  in  their  eyes,  an  additional  reason  for 
valuing  our  language.  They  are  supposed  to  prize  nothing 
more  highly  than  the  victories  of  the  will:  the  diffusion  of  the 
French  language  in  the  world  is  one  of  these  victories;  and 
may  I  not  say  that  what  renders  it  more  precious  is  the  fact 
—  evident,  I  trust,  from  the  foregoing  —  that  our  writers  have 
won  it  only  by  identifying  the  interests  of  their  self-love  with 
the  interests  of  art  and  of  humanity  ? 

'  Compare  Buffon,  above,  p.  176. 
^  Compare  Swift,  above,  p.  162. 
*  Horace,  Art  oj  Poetry,  11.  71,  72. 


HARRISON  435 

XVIII 

FREDERIC    HARRISON    (1831-) 

On  English  Prose  (1898) 

[From  Tennyson,  Ruskin,  Mill,  and  Other  Literary  Estimates,  New  York 
and  London  (Macmillan),  1902  (pp.  149-165). 

Mr.  Harrison's  slightly  bantering  address  "  to  the  Bodley 
Literary  Society,  Oxford,"  was  delivered  in  response  to  an 
invitation  from  the  "President,  C.  Rene  Harrison"  —  the 
author's  son.  It  was  subsequently  printed  in  the  Nineteenth 
Century  for  June,  1898  (Vol.  43,  pp.  932-942),  with  the  title 
On  Style  in  English  Prose,  a  caption  which  some  readers  may 
still  prefer.  The  article  was  copied  from  the  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury by  the  Eclectic  Magazine  (Vol.  131,  pp.  327  ff.),  by 
Living  Age  (Vol.  218,  pp.  230  ff.),  and  by  the  Writer  (Vol.  11, 
pp.  113  ff.).  Still  later  it  received  a  few  verbal  corrections 
for  inclusion  as  Chapter  VII  in  the  first  imprint  (London, 
1899)  of  Mr.  Harrison's  volume,  cited  above.  In  his  review 
of  that  volume  {Forum,  Vol.  30,  September,  1900)  Professor 
W.  P.  Trent  discusses  Chapter  VII  in  some  detail  (pp.  120- 
121). 

Mr.  Harrison's  coloring  of  playful  overstatement  is  nou 
likely  to  obscure  the  rich  fund  of  good  sense  and  long  ex- 
perience which  his  address  discloses;  yet  the  tinge  must  not 
be  disregarded.] 

Fill  mi  dilectissime  (if,  sir,  I  may  borrow  the  words  of  the 
late  Lord  Derby  when,  as  Chancellor  of  the  University,  he 
conferred  the  degree  of  D.C.L.  on  Lord  Stanley,  his  son)  — 
I  fear  that  I  am  about  to  do  an  unwise  thing.  When,  in  an 
hour  of  paternal  weakness,  I  accepted  your  invitation  to 
address  the  Bodley  Society  on  Style,  it  escaped  me  that  it 
was  a  subject  with  which  undergraduates  have  but  small 
concern.  And  now  I  find  myself  talking  on  a  matter  whereof 
I  know  very  little,  and  could  do  you  no  good  even  if  I  knew 


436  THEORIES    OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

much,  in  presence  of  an  illustrious  historian,  to  say  nothing 
of  your  own  Head,  who  was  an  acknowledged  master  of 
English  when  my  own  hterary  style  aspired  to  nothing  more 
elegant  than  the  dry  forms  of  pleadings  and  deeds. 

Everyone  knows  how  futile  for  any  actual  result  are  those 
elaborate  disquisitions  on  Style  which  some  of  the  most  con- 
summate masters  have  amused  themselves  in  compiling,  but 
which  serve  at  best  to  show  how  quite  hackneyed  truisms  can 
be  graced  by  an  almost  miraculous  neatness  of  phrase.  It  is 
in  vain  to  enjoin  on  us  "  propriety,"  "  justness  of  expression," 
*'  suitability  of  our  language  to  the  subject  we  treat,"  and  all 
the  commonplaces  which  the  schools  of  Addison  and  of  John- 
son in  the  last  century  promulgated  as  canons  of  good  style. 
"  Proper  words  in  proper  places,"  says  Swift,  "  make  the  true 
definition  of  a  style."  ^  "  Each  phrase  in  its  right  place,"  says 
Voltaire.  Well !  Swift  and  Voltaire  knew  how  to  do  this 
with  supreme  skill;  but  it  does  not  help  us,  if  they  cannot 
teach  their  art.  Hcrw  are  we  to  know  what  is  the  proper  word? 
How  are  we  to  find  the  right  place?  And  even  a  greater  than 
Swift  or  Voltaire  is  not  much  more  practical  as  a  teacher. 
"  Suit  the  action  to  the  word,  and  the  word  to  the  action," 
says  Hamlet.  "  Be  not  too  tame  neither.  Let  your  own 
discretion  be  your  tutor."  Can  you  trust  your  own  discretion? 
Have  undergraduates  this  discretion?  And  how  could  I,  in 
presence  of  your  College  authority,  suggest  that  you  should 
have  no  tutor  but  your  own  discretion? 

All  this  is  as  if  a  music-master  were  to  say  to  a  pupil,  Sing 
always  in  tune  and  with  the  right  intonation,  and  whatever 
you  do,  produce  your  voice  in  the  proper  way !  Or,  to  make 
myself  more  intelligiljle  to  you  here,  it  is  as  if  W.  G.  Grace 
were  to  tell  you,  Play  a  "  yorker  "  in  the  right  way,  and  place 
the  ball  in  the  proper  spot  with  reference  to  the  field !  We 
know  that  neither  the  art  of  acting,  nor  of  singing,  nor  of 


HARRISON  437 

cricket  can  be  taught  by  general  commonplaces  of  this  sort. 
And  good  prose  is  so  far  like  cricket  that  the  W.  G.'s  of  litera- 
ture, after  ten  or  twenty  "centuries,"  can  tell  you  nothing 
more  than  this  —  to  place  your  words  in  the  right  spot,  and 
to  choose  the  proper  word,  according  to  the  "  field  "  that  you 
have  before  you. 

The  most  famous  essay  on  Style,  I  suppose,  is  that  by  one 
of  the  greatest  wizards  who  ever  used  language  —  I  mean  the 
Ars  Poetica  ^  of  Horace,  almost  every  line  of  which  has  be- 
come a  household  word  in  the  educated  world.  But  what 
avail  his  inimitable  epigrams  in  practice?  Who  is  helped  by 
being  told  not  to  draw  a  man's  head  on  a  horse's  neck,  or  a 
beautiful  woman  with  the  tail  end  of  a  fish?  "  Do  not  let 
brevity  become  obscurity;  do  not  let  your  mountain  in  labor 
bring  forth  a  mouse;  turn  over  your  Greek  models  night  and 
day;  your  compositions  must  be  not  only  correct,  but  must 
give  dehght,  touch  the  heart,"  and  so  forth,  and  so  forth. 
All  these  imperishable  maxims,  as  clean  cut  as  a  sardonyx 
gem  —  these  "  chestnuts,"  as  you  call  them  in  the  slang  of 
the  day  —  serve  as  hard  nuts  for  a  translator  to  crack,  and 
as  handy  mottoes  at  the  head  of  an  essay ;  but  they  are  barren 
of  any  solid  food  as  the  shell  of  a  walnut. 

Then  Voltaire,  perhaps  the  greatest  master  of  prose  in 
any  modern  language,  wrote  an  essay  on  Style,  in  the  same 
vein  of  epigrammatic  platitude.  No  declamation,  says  he, 
in  a  work  on  physics.  No  jesting  in  a  treatise  on  mathe- 
matics.^ Well !  but  did  Douglas  Jerrold  himself  ever  try  to 
compose  a  Comic  Trigonometry;  and  could  another  Charles 
Lamb  find  any  fun  in  Spencer's  First  Principles?  A  fine 
style,  says  Voltaire,  makes  anything  delightful;  but  it  is 
exceedingly  difficult  to  acquire,  and  very  rarely  found.  And 
all  he  has  to  say  is,  "  Avoid  grandiloquence,  confusion,  vul- 
garity, cheap  wit,  and  colloquial  slang  in  a  tragedy."     He 


438  THEORIES   OF  STYLE   IN  LITERATURE 

might  as  well  say,  Take  care  to  be  as  strong  as  Sandow,  and 
as  active  as  Prince  Ranjitsinhji,  and  whatever  you  do,  take 
care  not  to  grow  a  nose  like  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  in  the  new 
play ! 

An  ingenious  professor  of  literature  has  lately  ventured 
to  commit  himself  to  an  entire  treatise  on  Style,  wherein 
he  has  propounded  everything  that  can  usefully  be  said  about 
this  art,  in  a  style  which  illustrates  things  that  you  should 
avoid.  At  the  end  of  his  book  he  declares  that  style  cannot 
be  taught.  This  is  true  enough;  but  if  this  had  been  the  first, 
instead  of  the  last,  sentence  of  his  piece,  the  book  would  not 
have  been  written  at  all.  I  remember  that,  when  I  stood  for 
the  Hertford  Scholarship,  we  had  to  write  a  Latin  epigram  on 
the  thesis  — 

Omnia  liberius  nullo  poscente  — 

—  jatemur,    (I  replied  — ) 
Carmina  cur  poscas,  carmine  si  sit  opus? 

And  so  I  say  now.  Style  cannot  be  taught.*  And  this 
perhaps  puts  out  of  court  the  professor's  essay,  and  no  doubt 
my  own  also.  Nothing  practical  can  be  said  about  Style. 
And  no  good  can  come  to  a  young  student  by  being  anxious 
about  Style.  None  of  you  by  taking  thought  can  add  one 
cubit  to  his  stature;  no  !  nor  one  gem  to  his  English  prose, 
unless  nature  has  endowed  him  with  that  rare  gift  —  a  subtle 
ear  for  the  melody  of  words,  a  fastidious  instinct  for  the 
connotations  of  a  phrase. 

You  will,  of  course,  understand  that  I  am  speaking  of 
Style  in  that  higher  sense  as  it  was  used  by  Horace,  Swift, 
Voltaire,  and  great  writers,  that  is.  Style  as  an  element  of 
permanent  literature.  It  is  no  doubt  very  easy  by  practice 
and  good  advice  to  gain  a  moderate  facility  in  writing  cur- 
rent language,  and  even  to  get  the  trick  of  turning  out  lively 


HARRISON 


439 


articles  and  smart  reviews.  "  'Tis  as  easy  as  lying;  govern 
these  ventages  with  your  finger  and  thumb,  give  it  breath  with 
your  mouth,  and  it  will  discourse  most  eloquent  music" — ■ 
quite  up  to  the  pitch  of  the  journals  and  the  magazines  of  our 
day,  of  which  we  are  all  proud.  But  this  is  a  poor  trade;  and 
it  would  be  a  pity  to  waste  your  precious  years  of  young  study 
by  learning  to  play  on  the  literary  "  recorders."  You  may  be 
taught  to  fret  them.     You  will  not  learn  to  make  them  speak  ! 

There  are  a  few  negative  precepts,  quite  familiar  common 
form,  easy  to  remember,  and  not  difficult  to  observe.  These 
are  all  that  any  manual  can  lay  down.  The  trouble  comes 
in  when  we  seek  to  apply  them.  What  is  it  that  is  artificial, 
incongruous,  obscure  ?  How  are  we  to  be  simple  ?  Whence 
comes  the  music  of  language?  What  is  the  magic  that  can 
charm  into  life  the  apt  and  inevitable  word  that  lies  hidden 
somewhere  at  hand  —  so  near  and  yet  so  far  —  so  willing  and 
yet  so  coy  —  did  we  only  know  the  talisman  which  can 
awaken  it  ?  This  is  what  no  teaching  can  give  us  —  what 
skilful  tuition  and  assiduous  practice  can  but  improve  in  part, 
and  even  that  only  for  the  chosen  few. 

About  Style,  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  term,  I  think  the 
young  student  should  trouble  himself  as  little  as  possible. 
When  he  does,  it  too  often  becomes  the  art  of  clothing  thin 
ideas  in  well-made  garments.  To  gain  skill  in  expression 
before  he  has  got  thoughts  or  knowledge  to  express,  is  some- 
what premature;  and  to  waste  in  the  study  of  form  those 
irrevocable  years  which  should  be  absorbed  in  the  study  of 
things,  is  mere  decadence  and  fraud.  The  young  student 
—  ex  hypothesi  —  has  to  learn,  not  to  teach.  His  duty  is  to 
digest  knowledge,  not  to  popularize  it  and  carry  it  abroad. 
It  is  a  grave  mental  defect  to  parade  an  external  polish  far 
more  mature  than  the  essential  matter  within.  Where  the 
learner    is  called  on   to    express    his    thoughts    in  formal 


440  THEORIES  OF  STYLE    IN  LITERATURE 

compositions  —  and  the  less  he  does  this  the  better  —  it  is 
enough  that  he  put  his  ideas  or  his  knowledge  (if  he  has  any) 
in  clear  and  natural  terms.  But  the  less  he  labors  the  flow 
of  his  periods  the  more  truly  is  he  the  honest  learner,  the  less 
is  his  risk  of  being  the  smug  purveyor  of  the  crudities  with 
which  he  has  been  crammed,  the  further  is  he  from  becoming 
one  of  those  voluble  charlatans  whom  the  idle  study  of 
language  so  often  breeds. 

I  look  with  sorrow  on  the  habit  which  has  grown  up  in 
the  university  since  my  day  (in  the  far-off  fifties)  —  the 
habit  of  making  a  considerable  part  of  the  education  of  the 
place  to  turn  on  the  art  of  serving  up  gobbets  of  prepared 
information  in  essays  more  or  less  smooth  and  correct  — 
more  or  less  successful  imitations  of  the  viands  that  are 
cooked  for  us  daily  in  the  press.  I  have  heard  that  a  stu- 
dent has  been  asked  to  write  as  many  as  seven  essays  in  a 
week,  a  task  which  would  exhaust  the  fertility  of  a  Swift. 
The  bare  art  of  writing  readable  paragraphs  in  passable 
English  is  easy  enough  to  master;  one  that  steady  practice 
and  good  coaching  can  teach  the  average  man.  But  it  is  a 
poor  art,  which  readily  lends  itself  to  harm.^  It  leads  the 
shallow  ones  to  suppose  themselves  to  be  deep,  the  raw  ones 
to  fancy  they  are  cultured,  and  it  burdens  the  world  with  a 
deluge  of  facile  commonplace.  It  is  the  business  of  a  uni- 
versity to  train  the  mind  to  think  and  to  impart  solid  knowl- 
edge, not  to  turn  out  nimble  penmen  who  may  earn  a  living 
as  the  clerks  and  salesmen  of  hterature. 

Almost  all  that  can  be  laid  down  as  law  about  Style  is 
contained  in  a  sentence  of  Madame  de  Sevigne  in  her  twentieth 
letter  to  her  daughter.  "  Ne  quittez  jamais  le  naturel,"  she 
says;  "  votre  tour  s'y  est  forme,  et  cela  compose  un  style 
parfait."  I  suppose  I  must  translate  this;  for  Madame  de 
Sevigne  is  no  subject  for  modern  research,  and  our  Alma 


HARRISON  441 

Mater  is  concerned  only  with  dead  languages  and  remote 
epochs.  "  Never  forsake  what  is  natural,"  she  writes;  "  you 
have  moulded  yourself  in  that  vein,  and  this  produces  a 
perfect  style."  There  is  nothing  more  to  be  said.  Be 
natural,  be  simple,  be  yourself:  shun  artifices,  tricks,  fash- 
ions. Gain  the  tone  of  ease,  plainness,  self-respect.  To  thine 
own  self  be  true.®  Speak  out  frankly  that  which  you  have 
thought  out  in  your  own  brain  and  have  felt  within  your  own 
soul.  This,  and  this  alone,  creates  a  perfect  style,  as  she  says 
who  wrote  the  most  exquisite  letters  the  world  has  known. 

And  so  Moliere,  a  consummate  master  of  language  and 
one  of  the  soundest  critics  of  any  age,  in  that  immortal  scene 
of  his  Misanthrope,  declares  the  euphuistic  sonnets  of  the 
Court  to  be  mere  play  of  words,  pure  affectation,  not  worth  a 
snatch  from  a  peasant's  song.  That  is  not  the  way  in  which 
nature  speaks,  cries  Alceste  —  J^aime  mieux  ma  mie  —  that 
is  how  the  heart  gives  utterance,  without  colifichets,  with  no 
quips  and  cranks  of  speech,  very  dear  to  fancy,  and  of  very 
liberal  conceit.  And  Sainte-Beuve  cites  an  admirable  saying : 
"  All  peasants  have  style."  They  speak  as  nature  prompts. 
They  have  never  learned  to  play  with  words;  they  have 
picked  up  no  tricks,  mannerisms,  and  affectation  like  Osric 
and  Oronte  in  the  plays.  They  were  not  trained  to  write 
essays,  and  never  got  veterans  to  discourse  to  them  on  Style. 
Yet,  as  Sainte-Beuve  says,  they  have  style,  because  they  have 
human  nature,  and  they  have  never  tried  to  get  outside  the 
natural,  the  simple,  the  homely.  It  is  the  secret  of  Words- 
worth, as  it  was  of  Goldsmith,  as  it  was  of  Homer. 

Those  masters  of  style  of  whom  I  have  spoken  were  almost 
all  French  — Moliere,  Madame  de  Sevigne,  Voltaire,  Sainte- 
Beuve.  Style,  in  truth,  is  a  French  art;  there  is  hardly 
any  other  style  in  prose.  I  doubt  if  any  English  prose,  when 
judged  by  the  canons  of  perfect  style,  can  be  matched  with 


442  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

the  highest  triumphs  of  French  prose.  The  note  of  the  purest 
French  is  a  serene  harmony  of  tone,  an  infalhble  nicety  of 
keeping,  a  brightness  and  point  never  spasmodic,  never 
careless,  never  ruffled,  hke  the  unvarying  manner  of  a  gentle- 
man who  is  a  thorough  man  of  the  world.  Even  our  best 
English  will  sometimes  grow  impetuous,  impatient,  or  slack, 
as  if  it  were  too  much  trouble  to  maintain  an  imperturbable 
air  of  quite  inviolable  good- breeding.  In  real  life  no  people 
on  earth,  or  perhaps  we  ought  to  say  in  Europe,  in  this  sur- 
pass the  English  gentleman.  In  prose  literature  it  is  a  French 
gift,  and  seems  given  as  yet  to  the  French  alone.  Italians, 
Spaniards,  and  Russians  have  an  uncertain,  casual,  and  fitful 
style,  and  Germans  since  Heine  have  no  style  at  all.^ 

Whilst  we  have  hundreds  of  men  and  women  to-day  who 
write  good  English,  and  one  or  two  who  have  a  style  of  their 
own,  our  French  critics  will  hardly  admit  that  we  show  any 
example  of  the  purest  style  when  judged  by  their  own  standard 
of  perfection.  They  require  a  combination  of  simplicity, 
ease,  charm,  precision,  and  serenity  of  tone,  together  with  the 
memorable  phrase  and  inimitable  felicity  which  stamp  the 
individual  writer,  and  yet  are  obvious  and  delightful  to  every 
reader.  Renan  had  this ;  Pierre  Loti  has  it ;  Anatole  France 
has  it.  But  it  is  seldom  that  we  read  a  piece  of  current 
English  and  feel  it  to  be  exquisite  in  form,  apart  from  its 
substance,  refreshing  as  a  work  of  art,  and  yet  hall-marked 
from  the  mint  of  the  one  particular  author.  We  have  hall- 
marks enough,  it  is  true,  only  too  noisily  conspicuous  on  the 
plate;  but  are  they  refreshing  and  inspiring  ?  are  they  works 
of  art  ?  How  is  it  that  our  poetry,  even  our  minor  poetry  of 
the  day,  has  its  own  felicitous  harmony  of  tone,  whilst  our 
prose  is  notoriously  wanting  in  that  mellow  refinement  of 
form  which  the  French  call  Style? 

If  I  hazard  a  few  words  about  some  famous  masters  of 


HARRISON  443 

language,  I  must  warn  you  that  judgments  of  this  kind 
amount  to  little  more  than  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  the  critic 
himself.  There  are  no  settled  canons,  and  no  accepted  arbiter, 
of  the  elegances  of  prose.  It  is  more  or  less  a  matter  of 
personal  taste,  even  more  than  it  is  in  verse.  I  never  doubt 
that  the  greatest  master  of  prose  in  recorded  history  is  Plato. 
He  alone  (like  Homer  in  poetry)  is  perfect.  He  has  every 
mood,  and  all  are  faultless.^  He  is  easy,  lucid,  graceful,  witty, 
pathetic,  imaginative  by  turns;  but  in  all  kinds  he  is  natural 
and  inimitably  sweet.  He  is  never  obscure,  never  abrupt, 
never  tedious,  never  affected.  He  shows  us  as  it  were  his  own 
Athene,  wisdom  incarnate  in  immortal  radiance  of  form. 

Plato  alone  is  faultless.  I  will  not  allow  any  Roman  to  be 
perfect.  Cicero  even  in  his  letters  is  wordy,  rhetorical, 
academic.  Livy  is  too  consciously  painting  in  words,  too 
sonorous  and  diffuse  for  perfection;  as  Tacitus  carries  con- 
ciseness into  obscurity  and  epigram  into  paradox.  Of 
Latin  prose,  for  my  own  part,  I  value  most  the  soldierly 
simplicity  of  Caesar,  though  we  can  hardly  tell  if  he  could  be 
witty,  graceful,  pathetic,  and  fantastic  as  we  see  these  gifts  in 
Plato. 

One  of  the  most  suggestive  points  in  the  history  of  prose  is 
Boccaccio's  Decamerone,  where  a  style  of  strange  fascination 
suddenly  starts  into  life  with  hardly  any  earlier  models,  nay, 
two  or  three  centuries  earlier  than  organic  prose  in  any  of  the 
tongues  of  Europe.  For  many  generations  the  exquisite  ease 
and  melody  of  Boccaccio's  language  found  no  rival  in  any 
modern  nation,  nor  had  it  any  rival  in  Italy,  and  we  have  no 
evidence  that  anything  in  Italy  had  prepared  the  way  for  it. 
It  is  far  from  a  perfect  style,  for  it  is  often  too  fluid,  loose,  and 
voluminous  for  mature  prose;  but  as  a  first  effort  towards  an 
orderly  array  of  lucid  narrative,  it  is  an  amazing  triumph  of 
the  Italian  genius  for  art. 


444  THEORIES   OE  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Prose,  as  you  all  know,  is  always  and  everywhere  a  plant 
of  much  later  growth  than  poetry.^  Plato  came  four  or  five 
centuries  after  Homer;  Tacitus  came  two  centuries  later  than 
Lucretius;  Machiavelli  came  two  centuries  after  Dante; 
Voltaire  a  centur)^  after  Corneille;  Addison  a  century  after 
Shakespeare.  And  while  the  prose  of  Boccaccio,  with  all  its 
native  charm,  can  hardly  be  called  an  organic,  mature,  and 
mellow  style,  in  poetry,  for  nearly  a  century  before  Boccaccio, 
Dante  and  the  minor  lyrists  of  Italy  had  reached  absolute 
perfection  of  rhythmical  form. 

Although  fairly  good  prose  is  much  more  common  than 
fairly  good  verse,  yet  I  hold  that  truly  fine  prose  is  more  rare 
than  truly  fine  poetry.  I  trust  that  it  will  be  counted  neither 
a  whim  nor  a  paradox  if  I  give  it  as  a  reason  that  mastery  in 
prose  is  an  art  more  difficult  than  mastery  in  verse.  The 
very  freedom  of  prose,  its  want  of  conventions,  of  settled 
prosody,  of  musical  inspiration,  give  wider  scope  for  failure 
and  afford  no  beaten  paths.  Poetry  glides  swiftly  down  the 
stream  of  a  flowing  and  familiar  river,  where  the  banks  are 
always  the  helmsman's  guide.  Prose  puts  forth  its  lonely 
skiff  upon  a  boundless  sea,  where  a  multitude  of  strange  and 
different  crafts  are  cutting  about  in  contrary  directions. 
At  any  rate,  the  higher  triumphs  of  prose  come  later  and  come 
to  fewer  than  do  the  great  triumphs  of  verse. 

When  I  lately  had  to  study  a  body  of  despatches  and  State 
papers  of  the  latter  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  written  in 
six  modern  languages  of  Europe,  I  observed  that  the  Itahan 
alone  in  that  age  was  a  fonned  and  literary  language,  at  the 
command  of  all  educated  men  and  women,  possessed  of  or- 
ganic canons  and  a  perfectly  mature  type.  The  French, 
German,  Dutch,  English,  and  Spanish  of  that  age,  as  used  for 
[)ractical  ends,  were  still  in  the  state  of  a  language  held  in  solu- 
tion before  it  assumes  a  crystallized  form.     Even  the  men  who 


HARRISON  445 

wrote  correct  Latin  could  not  write  their  own  language  with 
any  real  command.  At  the  death  of  Tennyson,  we  may 
remember,  it  was  said  that  no  less  than  sixty-two  poets  were 
thought  worthy  of  the  wreath  of  bay.  Were  there  six  writers 
of  prose  whom  even  a  log-rolling  confederate  would  venture 
to  hail  as  a  possible  claimant  of  the  crown  ?  Assiduous  prac- 
tice in  composing  neat  essays  has  turned  out  of  late  ten  thou- 
sand men  and  women  who  can  put  together  very  pleasant 
prose.  It  has  not  turned  out  one  Hving  master  in  prose  as 
Tennyson  was  master  in  verse. 

I  have  spoken  of  Voltaire  as  perhaps  the  greatest  master 
of  prose  in  any  modern  language,  but  this  does  not  mean 
that  he  is  perfect,  and  without  qualification  or  want.  His 
limpid  clearness,  ease,  sparkle,  and  inexhaustible  self- 
possession  have  no  rival  in  modern  tongues,  and  are  almost 
those  of  Plato  himself .  But  he  is  no  Plato;  he  never  rises  into 
the  pathos,  imagination,  upper  air  of  the  empyrean,  to  which 
the  mighty  Athenian  can  soar  at  will.  Voltaire  is  never 
tedious,  wordy,  rhetorical,  or  obscure ;  and  this  can  be  said  of 
hardly  any  other  modem  but  Heine  and  Swift.  My  edition  of 
Voltaire  is  in  sixty  volumes,  of  which  some  forty  are  prose; 
and  in  all  those  twenty  thousand  pages  of  prose  not  one  is  dull 
or  labored.  We  could  not  say  this  of  the  verse.  But  I  take 
Candide  or  Zadig  to  be  the  high-water  mark  of  easy  French 
prose,  wanting  no  doubt  in  the  finer  elements  of  pathos, 
dignity,  and  power.  And  for  this  reason  many  have  preferred 
the  prose  of  Rousseau,  of  George  Sand,  of  Renan,  though  all 
of  these  are  apt  at  times  to  degenerate  into  garrulity  and  gush. 
There  was  no  French  prose,  says  Voltaire,  before  Pascal; 
and  there  has  been  none  of  the  highest  flight  since  Renan.  In 
the  rest  of  Europe  perfect  prose  has  long  been  as  rare  as  the 
egg  of  the  great  auk. 

In  spite  of  the  splendor  of  Bacon  and  of  Milton,  of  Jeremy 


446  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Taylor,  and  of  Hooker,  and  whatever  be  the  virility  of  Bunyan 
and  Drydcn,  I  cannot  hold  that  the  age  of  mature  English 
prose  had  been  reached  until  we  come  to  Defoe,  Swift, 
Addison,  Berkeley,  and  Goldsmith.  These  are  the  highest 
types  we  have  attained.  Many  good  judges  hold  Swift  to  be 
our  Voltaire,  without  defect  or  equal.  I  should  certainly  ad- 
vise the  ambitious  essayist  to  study  Swift  for  instruction,  by 
reason  of  the  unfailing  clearness,  simplicity,  and  directness 
of  his  style.  But  when  we  come  to  weigh  him  by  the  highest 
standard  of  all,  we  find  Swift  too  uniformly  pedestrian,  too 
dr}';  wanting  in  variety,  in  charm,  in  melody,  in  thunder, 
and  in  flash.  The  grandest  prose  must  be  like  the  vault  of 
heaven  itself,  passing  from  the  freshness  of  dawn  to  the 
warmth  of  a  serene  noon,  and  anon  breaking  forth  into  a 
crashing  storm.  Swift  sees  the  sun  in  one  uniform  radi- 
ance of  cool  light,  but  it  never  fills  the  air  with  warmth, 
nor  does  it  ever  light  the  welkin  with  fire.*" 

Addison,  with  all  his  mastery  of  tone,  seems  afraid  to  give 
his  spirit  rein.  II  s'ecoute  quand  il  park :  and  this,  by  the  way, 
is  the  favorite  sin  of  our  best  moderns.  We  see  him  pause 
at  the  end  of  each  felicitous  sentence  to  ask  himself  if  he  has 
satisfied  all  the  canons  as  to  propriety  of  diction.  Even  in  the 
Spectator  we  never  altogether  forget  the  author  of  Cato.  Now, 
we  perceive  no  canons  of  good  taste,  no  tragic  buskin,  no 
laborious  modulations  in  the  Vicar  oj  Wakefield,  which  in  its 
own  vein  is  the  most  perfect  type  of  eighteenth-century  prose. 
Dear  old  Goldie !  There  is  ease,  pellucid  simplicity,  wit, 
pathos.  I  doubt  if  English  prose  has  ever  gone  further,  or 
will  go  further  or  higher. 

After  all  I  have  said,  I  need  not  labor  the  grounds  on 
which  I  feel  Johnson,  Burke,  Gibbon,  Macau'ay,  and  Carlyle 
to  be  far  from  perfect  as  writers  and  positively  fatal  if  taken 
as   models.    Old    Samuel's  Ciceronian   pomp   has   actually 


HARRISON  447 

dimmed  our  respect  for  his  good  sense  and  innate  robustness 
of  soul.  Burke  was  too  great  an  orator  to  be  a  consummate 
writer,  as  he  was  too  profound  a  writer  to  be  a  perfect  orator. 
Gibbon's  imperial  eagles  pass  on  in  one  unending  triumph, 
with  the  resounding  blare  of  brazen  trumpets,  till  we  weary 
of  the  serried  legions  and  grow  dizzy  with  the  show.  And  as 
toMacaulay  and  Carlyle,  they  carry  emphasis  to  the  point  of 
exhaustion;  for  the  peer  bangs  down  his  fist  to  clinch  every 
sentence,  and  "  Sartor  "  never  ceases  his  uncouth  gesticula- 
tions and  grimace. 

In  our  own  century,  Charles  Lamb  and  Thackeray,  I  think, 
come  nearest  to  Voltaire  and  Madame  de  Sevigne  in  purity  of 
diction,  in  clearness,  ease,  grace,  and  wit.  But  a  Hving  writer 
—  now  long  silent  and  awaiting  his  summons  to  the  eternal 
silence  —  had  powers  which,  had  he  cared  to  train  them  before 
he  set  about  to  reform  the  world,  would  have  made  him  the 
noblest  master  who  ever  used  the  tongue  of  Milton.  Need  I 
name  the  versatile  genius  who  labored  here  in  Oxford  so  long 
and  with  such  success?  In  the  mass  of  his  writings  John 
Ruskin  has  struck  the  lyre  of  prose  in  every  one  of  its  infinite 
notes.  He  has  been  lucid,  distinct,  natural,  fanciful,  humor- 
ous, satiric,  majestic,  mystical,  and  prophetic  by  turns  as 
the  spirit  moved  within  him.  No  Englishman  —  hardly 
Milton  himself  —  has  ever  so  completely  mastered  the  tonic 
resources  of  English  prose,  its  majesty  and  wealth  of 
rhythm,  the  flexibility,  mystery,  and  infinitude  of  its  mighty 
diapason." 

Alas  !  the  pity  of  it.  These  incomparable  descants  are  but 
moments  and  interludes,  and  are  too  often  chanted  forth  in 
mere  wantonness  of  emotion.  Too  often  they  lead  us  on  to 
formless  verbosity  and  a  passionate  rhetoric,  such  as  blind 
even  temperate  critics  to  the  fact,  that  it  is  possible  to  pick  out 
of  the  books  of  John  Ruskin  whole  pages  which  in  harmony, 


448  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

power,  and  glow  have  no  match  in  the  whole  range  of  oui 
prose. 

And  now  I  know  I  must  not  end  without  hazarding  a  few 
practical  hints  —  what  betting  men  and  undergraduates  call 
"  tips  "  —  for  general  remarks  upon  literature  have  little  in- 
terest for  those  whose  mind  runs  on  sports,  and  perhaps  even 
less  for  those  whose  mind  is  absorbed  in  the  schools.  But  as 
there  are  always  some  who  dream  of  a  life  of  '*  letters,"  an 
occupation  already  too  crowded  and  far  from  inviting  at  the 
best,  they  will  expect  me  to  tell  them  how  I  think  they  may 
acquire  a  command  of  Style.  I  know  no  reason  why  they 
should,  and  I  know  no  way  they  could  set  about  it.  But, 
supposing  one  has  something  to  say  —  something  that  it  con- 
cerns the  world  to  know  —  and  this,  for  a  young  student, 
is  a  considerable  claim,  "  a  large  order,"  I  think  he  calls  it  in 
the  current  dialect,  all  I  have  to  tell  him  is  this:  Think  it  out 
quite  clearly  in  your  own  mind,  and  then  put  it  down  in  the 
simplest  words  that  offer,  just  as  if  you  were  telling  it  to  a 
friend,  but  dropping  the  tags  of  the  day  with  which  your 
spoken  discourse  would  naturally  be  garnished.  Be  famil- 
iar, but  by  no  means  vulgar.  At  any  rate,  be  easy,  col- 
loquial if  you  like,  but  shun  those  vocables  which  come 
to  us  across  the  Atlantic,  or  from  Newmarket  and  White- 
chapel,  with  which  the  gilded  youth  and  journahsts  "  up-to- 
date  "  love  to  salt  their  language.  Do  not  make  us  "sit  up  " 
too  much,  or  always  ''  take  a  back  seat  ";  do  not  ask  us  to 
"  ride  for  a  fall,"  to  "  hurry  up,"  or  "  boom  it  all  we  know." 
Nothing  is  more  irritating  in  print  than  the  iteration  of  slang, 
and  those  stale  phrases  with  which  "  the  half-baked  "  seek 
to  convince  us  that  they  are  "in  the  swim"  and  "going 
strong"  —  if  I  may  borrow  the  language  of  the  day  —  that 
Volapiik  of  the  smart  and  knowing  world.  It  offends  me  hke 
the  reek  of  last  night's  tobacco. 


HARRISON  449 

It  is  a  good  rule  for  a  young  writer  to  avoid  more  than 
twenty  or  thirty  words  without  a  full  stop,  and  not  to  put 
more  than  two  commas  in  each  sentence,  so  that  its  clauses 
should  not  exceed  three.  This,  of  course,  only  in  practice. 
There  is  no  positive  law.  A  fine  writer  can  easily  place  in  a 
sentence  one  hundred  words,  and  five  or  six  minor  clauses 
with  their  proper  commas  and  colons.  Ruskin  was  wont  to 
toss  off  two  or  three  hundred  words  and  five-and-twenty 
commas  without  a  pause.  But  even  in  the  hand  of  such  a 
magician  this  ends  in  failure,  and  is  really  grotesque  in  effect, 
for  no  such  sentence  can  be  spoken  aloud.  A  beginner  can 
seldom  manage  more  than  twenty-five  words  in  one  sentence 
with  perfect  ease.  Nearly  all  young  writers,  just  as  men  did 
in  the  early  ages  of  prose  composition,  drift  into  ragged,  pre- 
posterous, inorganic  sentences,  without  beginning,  middle, 
or  end,  which  they  ought  to  break  into  two  or  three. 

And  then  they  hunt  up  terms  that  are  fit  for  science, 
poetry,  or  devotion.  They  affect  "  evolution  "  and  "  factors," 
"  the  interaction  of  forces,"  "  the  coordination  of  organs  "  ; 
or  else  everything  is  "  weird,"  or  "  opalescent,"  "  debonair," 
and  "  enamelled,"  so  that  they  will  not  call  a  spade  a  spade. 
I  do  not  say,  stick  to  Saxon  words  and  avoid  Latin  words 
as  a  law  of  language,  because  English  now  consists  of  both: 
good  and  plain  English  prose  needs  both.  We  seldom  get 
the  highest  poetry  without  a  large  use  of  Saxon,  and  we  hardly 
reach  precise  and  elaborate  explanation  without  Latin  terms. 
Try  to  turn  precise  and  elaborate  explanation  into  strict  Saxon ; 
and  then  try  to  turn  "  Our  Father,  which  art  in  heaven  "  into 
pure  Latin  words.  No  1  current  English  prose  —  not  the 
language  of  poetry  or  of  prayer  —  must  be  of  both  kinds, 
Saxon  and  Latin.  But  wherever  a  Saxon  word  is  enough, 
use  it ;  because  if  it  have  all  the  fulness  and  the  precision  you 
need,  it  is  the  more  simple,  the  more  direct,  the  more  homely. 

2G 


450  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Never  quote  anything  that  is  not  apt  and  new.  Those 
stale  citations  of  well-worn  lines  give  us  a  cold  shudder,  as 
does  a  pun  at  a  dinner-party.  A  familiar  phrase  from  poetry 
or  Scripture  may  pass  when  imbedded  in  your  sentence.  But 
to  show  it  round  as  a  nugget  which  you  have  just  picked  up  is 
the  innocent  freshman's  snare.  Never  imitate  any  writer, 
however  good.  All  imitation  in  literature  is  a  mischief,  as  it  is 
in  art.  A  great  and  popular  writer  ruins  his  followers  and 
mimics  as  did  Raffaelle  and  Michelangelo;  and  when  he 
founds  a  school  of  style,  he  impoverishes  literature  more  than 
he  enriches  it.  Johnson,  Macaulay,  Carlyle,  Dickens,  Rus- 
kin  have  been  the  cause  of  flooding  us  with  cheap  copies  of 
their  special  manner.  And  even  now  Meredith,  Stevenson, 
Swinburne,  and  Pater  lead  the  weak  to  ape  their  airs  and 
graces.  All  imitation  in  literature  is  an  evil.  I  say  to  you,  as 
Mat  Arnold  said  to  me  (who  surely  needed  no  such  warning), 
"Flee  Carlylese  as  the  very  devil!"  Yes,  flee  Carlylese, 
Ruskinese,Meredithese,  and  every  other  ese,  past,  present,  and 
to  come.  A  writer  whose  style  invites  imitation  so  far  falls 
short  of  being  a  true  master.  He  becomes  the  parent  of  carica- 
ture, and  frequently  he  gives  lessons  in  caricature  himself. 

Though  you  must  never  imitate  any  writer,  you  may  study 
the  best  writers  with  care.  And  for  study  choose  those  who 
have  founded  no  school,  who  have  no  special  and  imitable 
.  style.  Read  Pascal  and  Voltaire  in  French ;  Swift,  Hume, 
and  Goldsmith  in  English;  and  of  the  moderns,  I  think, 
Thackeray  and  Froude.  Ruskin  is  often  too  rhapsodical  for 
a  student;  Meredith  too  whimsical;  Stevenson  too  "  precious," 
as  they  love  to  call  it ;  George  Eliot  too  laboriously  enamelled 
and  erudite.  When  you  cannot  quietly  enjoy  a  picture  for 
the  curiosity  aroused  by  its  so-called  "  brushwork,"  the  paint- 
ing may  be  a  surprising  sleight-of-hand,  but  is  not  a  master- 
piece. 


HARRISON  451 

Read  Voltaire,  Defoe,  Swift,  Goldsmith,  and  you  will  come 
to  understand  how  the  highest  charm  of  words  is  reached 
without  your  being  able  to  trace  any  special  element  of 
charm.  The  moment  you  begin  to  pick  out  this  or  that 
felicity  of  phrase,  this  or  that  sound  of  music  in  the  words, 
and  directly  it  strikes  you  as  eloquent,  lyrical,  pictorial  — • 
then  the  charm  is  snapped.  The  style  may  be  fascinating, 
brilliant,  impressive;    but  it  is  not  perfect. 

Of  melody  in  style  I  have  said  nothing;  nor  indeed  can 
anything  practical  be  said.  It  is  a  thing  infinitely  subtle, 
inexplicable,  and  rare.^^  If  your  ear  does  not  hear  the  false 
note,  the  tautophony  or  the  cacophony  in  the  written  sentence, 
as  you  read  it  or  frame  it  silently  to  yourself,  and  hear  it 
thus  inaudibly  long  before  your  eye  can  pick  it  forth  out  of 
the  written  words,  nay,  even  when  the  eye  fails  to  locahze  it  by 
analysis  at  all  —  then  you  have  no  inborn  sense  of  the  melody 
of  words,  and  be  quite  sure  that  you  can  never  acquire  it. 
One  living  Englishman  has  it  in  the  highest  form;  for  the 
melody  of  Ruskin's  prose  may  be  matched  with  that  of  Milton 
and  Shelley.  I  hardly  know  any  other  English  prose  which 
retains  the  ring  of  that  ethereal  music  —  echoes  of  which  are 
more  often  heard  in  our  poetry  than  in  our  prose.  Nay, 
since  it  is  beyond  our  reach,  wholly  incommunicable,  defiant 
of  analysis  and  rule,  it  may  be  more  wise  to  say  no  more. 

Read  Swift,  Defoe,  Goldsmith,  if  you  care  to  know  what 
is  pure  English.  I  need  hardly  tell  you  to  read  another  and 
a  greater  Book.  The  Book  which  begot  English  prose  still 
remains  its  supreme  type.  The  English  Bible  is  the  true 
school  of  English  literature. ^^  It  possesses  every  quality  of 
our  language  in  its  highest  form  —  except  for  scientific 
precision,  practical  affairs,  and  philosophic  analysis.  It 
would  be  ridiculous  to  write  an  essay  on  metaphysics,  a 
political  article,  or  a  novel  in  the  language  of  the  Bible. 


452  THEORIES   OF  STYLE  IN  LITERATURE 

Indeed,  it  would  be  ridiculous  to  write  anything  at  all  in  the 
language  of  the  Bible.  But  if  you  care  to  know  the  best  that 
our  literature  can  give  in  simple  noble  prose — mark,  learn, 
and  inwardly  digest  the  Holy  Scriptures  in  the  Enghsh 
tongue. 

'  Compare  above,  pp.  i6o,  i6i. 

^  Strictly  speaking,  you  cannot  call  Horace's  Ars  Poetica  an  "essay  on 
Style  " ;  though  of  course  an  epistle  on  the  art  of  poetry  would  have  to  con- 
sider style,  that  is,  poetical  style,  as  an  important  side  of  the  craft.  —  Com- 
pare Wackernagel,  above,  p.  3. 

'  See  above,  p.  181. 

*  Yet  observe  what  Mr.  Harrison  says  of  style  among  the  French  (p.  442), 
and  compare  Brunetiere's  opinion  of  the  way  in  which  that  style  has  been 
attained  (above,  pp.  4i7ff.). 

^  Mr.  Harrison  is  in  accord  with  Mr.  John  Morley  on  this  point.  See 
the  latter's  Studies  in  Literature,  p.  222:  "I  will  even  venture,  with  all  re- 
spect to  those  who  are  teachers  of  literature,  to  doubt  the  excellence  and 
utility  of  the  practice  of  over-much  essay-writing  and  composition.  I  have 
very  little  faith  in  rules  of  style,  though  I  have  an  unbounded  faith  in  the 
virtue  of  cultivating  direct  and  precise  expression.  But  you  must  carry  on 
the  operation  inside  the  mind,  and  not  merely  by  practising  literary  deport- 
ment on  paper." 

*  '■  To  thine  own  self  be  true."  This  is  said  by  Polonius  in  Hamlet.  Is 
the  rest  of  Polonius's  speech  sound  wisdom?  How  do  these  six  words  agree 
with  the  third  Beatitude,  or  with  Mark  viii.  34? 

'  Compare  Schopenhauer,  above,  p.  256.  Is  Schopenhauer  addicted  to 
exaggeration  ? 

*  Compare  Longinus,  above,  pp.  103,  137,  142. 
'  Compare  Wackernagel,  above,  pp.  6-7. 

*"  Compare  Coleridge,  above,  pp.  205-207. 

"  Chapter  II  of  Mr.  Harrison's  volume  is  a  fine  appreciation  of  Ruskin 
as  Master  of  Prose,  the  last  paragraph  beginning:  "  If,  then,  John  Ruskin  be 
not  in  actual  achievement  the  greatest  master  who  ever  wrote  in  English 
prose,  it  is  only  because  he  refused  to  chasten  his  passion  and  his  imagina- 
tion until  the  prime  of  life  was  past." 

*^  Yet  Mr.  Harrison  attempts  an  explanation  of  "the  quality  of  musical 
assonance"  in  Ruskin  (Chap.  II,  pp.  57  ff.).  His  remarks  there  offer  an 
interesting  parallel  to  Stevenson's  essay  (above,  pp.  379  ff.);  compare  also 
Coventry  Patmore  as  quoted  in  his  Life,  by  Basil  Champneys,  Vol.  i,  p.  106. 

"  See  Professor  Albert  S.  Cook's  The  Bible  and  English  Prose  Style. 
Boston,  Heath,  1892,  and  Professor  C.  S.  Baldwin's  How  to  Write:  A  Hand- 
book Based  on  the  English  Bible,  New  York,  Macmillan,  1905. 


INDEX   OF    PROPER   NAMES 


Achilles,  65,  103,  in,  122. 

Acomat,   182. 

Acumenus,  36,  37. 

Adam  (As  You  Like  It),  373. 

Addison,  205,  324,  367,  436,  444, 

Adonis,  47. 

Adrastus,  38. 

yEschines,  126. 

^schylus,  12,  15,  100  n.,  121,  12 

122,  122  n.,  213,  218. 
^sion,  84. 

Agamemnon,   92,    103. 
Agathocles,  103. 
Ajax,  108,  no,  in,  359. 
Albalat,  xiii. 
Alceste,  441. 
Alcidamas,  63,  64,  65. 
Alden,  H.  M.,  xxii. 
Alexander,  102,  108,  139,  210,  217, 

240,  241. 
Aloeus,  107. 
Ammon,  45,  46. 
Ammonius,  118. 
Amphicrates,  loi,  103. 
Anacreon,  138. 
Anaxagoras,  39. 
Anaxandrides,  83,  89,  94. 
Andromache,  183. 
Androtion,  66. 
Angelico,  361. 
Anne,  Queen,  205. 
Antimachus,  70,  70  n. 
Antiochus,  182. 
Antisthenes,  67. 
Apelles,  n. 
Aphrodite,  23,  92. 
Apollo,  33. 
ApoUonius,  143. 
Aratus,  114,  134,  134  n. 
Archidamas,  66,  66  n. 
Archilochus,  114,  118,  143. 
Archytas,  87. 
Ares,  67,  90,  91,  121. 


446. 


237. 


Aricia,  183,  184,  184  n. 

Arimaspeia  (the  poet  of  the),  113,  114. 

Aristogeiton,  135,  136. 

Aristophanes,  15,  63,  152,  213,  439,  241, 
269  n. 

Aristotle,  x,  xii,  xiii,  2,  3,  21,  51,  52-96, 
122  n.,  140,  159  n.,  179,  190,  210,  211, 
212,  213,  215,  218  n.,  237,  311,  322. 

Armstrong,  W.  H.,  xxi. 

Arnold,  Matthew,  xiii,  xv,  97,  450. 

Athenaeus,  61  n. 

Athenagoras,  145. 

Athene,  92. 

Augustus  Caesar,  236. 

Aurungzebe,  354,  355. 

Autolycus,  362. 

Babbitt,  Irving,  414. 

Bacchylides,  144. 

Bach,  II,  411. 

Bacon,   202,   252,   308,   326,   327,   388, 

393.  445- 
Bain,  xiii. 
Bainton,  xiii,  xx. 
Baldwin,  C.  S.,  xiii,  452. 
Balfour,  Graham,  364. 
Balzac,  Guez  de,   180,  190. 
Balzac,  Honore  de,  306,  307,  420. 
Barrow,  205. 
Baudelaire,  422. 
Becker,  K.  F.,  xiv. 
Becker,  W.  A.,  68  n. 
Bellay,  Joachim  du,  418. 
Berenice,  182. 
Bergerac,  Cyrano  de,  438. 
Berkeley,  446. 
Bernier,  354. 
Biot,  326. 
Bird,  F.  M.,  xiv. 
Blair,  xiv,  270,  273. 
Blake,  402,  406. 
Boccaccio,  202,  443,  444. 
Boeckh,  A.,  xiv. 


453 


454 


INDEX 


Bohun,  Sir  Henry,  359. 

Boileau,  257,  326,  363,  419,  424,  425, 

428. 
Booth,  D.,  xxii. 
Boreas,  100. 
Bossuet,  414,  419,  424,  426,  427,  429, 

431.  432- 
Botta,  248,  250  n. 
Bourdaloue,  431. 
Bourget,  P.,  xiv. 
Boyd,  270. 
Breal,  A.,  193. 
Breal,  M.,  xxi. 

Brewster,  W.  T.,  ix,  xiv,  270. 
Brock,  A.  C,  xxii. 

Browne,  Sir  Thomas,  203,  204,  211,  388. 
Browning,  388,  428. 
Bruce,  Robert,  359. 
Brunetiere,  xi,  xiv,   21,    179,   414-434, 

452- 

Brunschvicg,  L.,  xxii. 

Bruyere,  La,  xvii. 

Bryson,  61,  62. 

Buck,  W.  J.,  xiv. 

Buffon,  xi,  xii,  16,  96  n.,  159  n.,  169-179, 
180,  208,  269  n.,  311,  322,  326,  362  n., 
408.  410,  413,  424,  425,  434  n. 

Buloz,  415. 

Bulwer  Lytton,  xiv,  xviii. 

Bunyan,  446. 

Burke,  324,  357,  363,  446. 

Burns,  298,  299. 

Burroughs,  J.,  xiv. 

Butcher,  S.  H.,  xiii,  51. 

Butler,  Samuel  (Hudibras),  366. 

Byron,  157  n. 

C£Ecilius,  97,  98,  102,  106,  107,  139,  142. 

Cassar,  Augustus,  236. 

Ca-'sar,  Julius,  443. 

Caliban,  362. 

Callias,  60. 

Calliope,  24,  61. 

Callisthenes,  loi. 

Callot,  188. 

Campbell,  George,  xiv,  270,  278. 

Campbell,  J.  Dykes,  199. 

Camus,  Le,  187. 

Cannon,  General,  382,  383. 

Carlyle,   xix,   298,   299,   310,   367,   388, 

413.  428,  446,  447,  450. 
Carpenter,  G.  R.,  xiv. 
Cary,  L.  (Lord  Falkland),  162,  168  n. 


Cavalcanti,  G.,  xxi. 

Cellini,  B.,  xxi. 

Cephalus,  31. 

Cephisodotus,  67,  82,  83,  84. 

Cey.x,  135. 

Chabrias,  85,  85  n. 

Chaeremon,  93. 

Chaignet,  A.,  xiv. 

Chalmers,  W.  P.,  365. 

Champneys,  Basil,  452. 

Channing,  W.  E.,  245. 

Chares,  82,  84,  84  n. 

Charles  I,  242,  243. 

Charles  II,  204. 

Charles  IX  (of  France),  417. 

Chaucer,  199,  200,  201,  202,  206,  208. 

Christabel,  216. 

Cicero,  xv,  11,  18,  21,    52,  54  n.,   n6, 

117,  166,  167,  181,  207,  222,  223,  224, 

235,  240,  268,  316,  317,  324,  336,  367, 

371,  388,  392>  410.  416,443. 
Circe,  112. 
Cleitarchus,  loi. 
Cleomenes,  139. 
Cleon,  67,  74,  74  n. 
Cleophon,  71,  71  n. 
Cobet,  126  n. 
Coleridge,  H.  N.,  199. 
Coleridge,    S.    T.,    xv,    161,    199-208, 

250  n.,  281,  292,  353,  363,  380,  381, 

386,  413.  452- 
Collyer  (Collier),  Jeremy,  205. 
Condillac,  .xv. 
Constable,  J.,  xv. 
Cook,  Albert  S.,  xv,  xx,  198  n.,  312,  385, 

412  n.,  452. 
Cope,  59  n.,  60  n.,  63  n.,  69  n.,  70  n., 

75  n.,  79  n.,  80  n.,  93  n.,  95  n. 
Corneille,  444. 
Cowley,  205. 
Cowper,  214. 
Craik,  xv. 

Crane,  T.  F.,  xxi,  169. 
Crawshaw,  xv. 
Croesus,  68. 
Croiset,  23,  24. 
Crusoe,  Robinson,  214. 
Cybele,  60  n. 

Cyclops    (Polyphemus),    iii. 
Cyrus,  134. 

Dalhousie,  358. 

Daniel,  Samuel,  246,  250  n. 


INDEX 


455 


Dante,  xxi,  412,  444. 

Darius,  220  n. 

David,  420. 

Defoe,  214,  446,  451. 

Demeter,  60  n. 

Demetrius,  xv,  168  n. 

Democrates,  67. 

Democritus  of  Chios,  78. 

Demosthenes,  66,  67,  100,  115,  115  n., 
116,  117,  119,  123,  123  n.,  124,  124  n., 
125,  125  n.,  126,  127,  127  n.,  129, 
129  n.,  130,  131,  133,  133  n.,  135,  136, 
136  n.,  139,  140,  140  n.,  144,  145, 
147,  151,  152,  165,  166,  242,  268,  416. 

Demosthenes  (Pseudo-),  148. 

Denham,  339,  363. 

Dennis,  J.,  xv. 

De  Quincey,  xiv,  xv,  xix,  209-244,  312, 
313.  320.  344,  352.  353.  362  n.,  363, 
389.  413- 

Derby,  Lord,  435. 

De  Roger,  250  n. 

Descartes,  252,  327,  425. 

Diana,  281. 

Dickens,  377,  450. 

Diderot,  xv. 

Diogenes,  83. 

Diomed  (Tydides),  134. 

Dion,  103. 

Dionysius  the  Brazen,  61,  61  n. 

Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus,  xv. 

Dionysius  of  Phocaea,  130,  131. 

Dionysius  (the  tyrant),  103. 

Dionysus,  33,  60,  60  n.,  67,  122. 

Drake,  N.,  xv. 

Dryden,  205,  388,  389,  446. 

Earle,  J.,  xv. 
Edward  VI,  202. 
Eliot,  George,  450. 
Ellwanger,  W.  D.,  xvi. 
Elster,  E.,  xvi. 
Elze,  K.,  xvi. 
Emerson,  295. 
Empedocles,  68. 
Enyo,   121. 
Epicharmus,  80. 
Epicurus,  146  n. 
Erato,  24. 
Eratosthenes,  143. 
Erigena,  252. 

Erinyes,  120  (Furies,  122). 
Eros,  -i,!,. 


Erskine,  223. 

Eryximachus,  36. 

Eulenspiegel,  252. 

Eupolis,  125,  125  n. 

Euripides,  15,  37,  58,  60,  77  n.,  86  n., 
120,  120  n.,  121,  121  n.,  122,  122  n., 
123,  123  n.,  152,  152  n.,  153,  153  n., 
213,  239,  240,  241. 

Eurylochus,  128. 

Euxenus,  66,  66  n. 

Evenus,  35. 

Fabriano,  Gentile  da,  328  n. 

Faguet,  E.  xvi,  387. 

Falkland,  162,  168  n. 

Falstaff,  260,  373. 

Fanning,  246. 

Felton,  H.,  xxii. 

Fichte,  253,  254,  256. 

Fielding,  367. 

Fischer,  Kuno,  251. 

Fisher,  E.,  xvi. 

Flaubert,  xiv,  xvi,  387,  397,  401,  403- 

41 1,  420,  422,  423. 
Flourens,  P.,  169. 
Fontaine,  La,  426,  427. 
Fontenelle,  179,  422. 
Forsyth,  W.,  xvi. 
Fouquet,  181. 
Fowler,  F.  G.,  xvi,  xvii. 
Fowler,  H.  W.,  xvi,  xvii. 
France,  Anatole,  442. 
Francis  I,  417. 
Frederick  the  Great,  343. 
Froude,  450. 
Furies  (Erinyes),  122. 

Galileo,  327. 

Galton,  Arthur,  392  n. 

Garrick,  259. 

Gayley  (and  Scott),  xii,  xvi,  386. 

Genung,  xvi. 

Geoffrin,  Madame,  433. 

Gerber,  xvi. 

Geruzez,  169,  179. 

Gibbon,  207,  390,  446,  447. 

Glaucon  (of  Teos),  54. 

Goethe,  xii,  190,  192-198,  263,  339  n, 

z^i,  417.  428. 

Goldsmith,  310,  441,  446,  450,  451. 

Goliath,  420. 

Goncourt,  de,  xiv. 

Gorgias,  27,  35,  56,  56  n.,  63,  65,  73,  loi. 


456 


INDEX 


Grace,  W.  G.,  436,  437- 

Graf,  A.,  xxi. 

Greenough  (and  Kittredge),  311. 

Grimm,  F.  M.,  169. 

Grober,  xxi. 

Grote,  23,  52. 

Guinicelli,  G.,  xxi. 

Gummere,  F.  B.,  xvi. 

Hamlet,  436. 

Harpe,  La,  xvii. 

Harrison,  C.  Rene,  435. 

Harrison,  Frederic,  xi,  xiv,  2,  21,  161, 

208,  364,  435-452. 
Hart,  J.  M.,  ix  n.,  xvi,  21,  209. 
Hart,  J.  S.,  xvi. 
Hartmann,  E.  von,  xvi. 
Hartog,  P.  J.,  xvi. 
Hastings,  T.  S.,  xvi. 
Havell,  97. 
Hawthorne,  413. 
Hearn,  Lafcadio,  xxii. 
Hecataeus,   135. 
Hector,  135. 
Hegel,  254,  254  n.,  255. 
Hegesias,  loi. 
Heine,  2,  442,  445. 
Helios,  121. 
Helps,  Arthur,  314. 
Helvetius,  221. 
Hemon,  F.,  169. 
Hendrickson,  xvii. 
Henley,  W.  E.,  xv,  364. 
Heracleitus,  69. 
Herakleides,  103. 
Hercules  (Herakles),  103,  135,  152,  184, 

184  n.,  189. 
Herder,  13,  22. 
Hermes,  31,  102. 
Hermocrates,  103. 
Hermogenes,  211. 
Hermon,  103. 
Herodotus,  76,  76  n.,  104,  118,  128,  131, 

131    n-.   133.    134,   134  n.,   137,    139, 

139  n.,  149,  149  n.,  154,  154  n.,  218. 
Hesiod,   78  n.,   108,   io8  n.,   119,   262, 

262  n. 
Heydrick,  B.  A.,  xvii. 
Hickie,  120  n. 
Hippias,  35. 
Hippocrates,  39,  40. 
Hippolytus,  184,  184  n. 
Hirzel,  23. 


Hobbes,  327. 

Holbach,  185,  186,  187,  190. 

Home,  Henry  (Lord  Kames),  xvii,  270, 

273.  283,  311. 
Homer,  50,  65,  81,  86,  87,  87  n.,  94,  95, 

107,  108,  109,  no.  III,  112,  113,  114, 
118,  119,  120,  121,  128,  143,  147, 
157,  192,  193,  222,  441,  443.  444- 

Homer  (lliad),  17,  65,  65  n.,  86,  86  n., 
92,  92  n.,  94,  94  n.,  103,  103  n.,  108, 
108  n.,  109,  109  n.,  no,  no  n.,  in, 
114,  114  n.,  121,  121  n.,  134,  134  n., 
135,  135  n.,  233. 

Homer  {Odyssey),  81,  81  n.,  86,  86  n., 

108,  108  n.,  no,  III,  III  n.,  112, 
112  n.,  128,  128  n.,  136,  136  n.,  157, 

157  n-.  233- 
Hooker,  202,  203,  205,  446. 
Horace,   185,   189,   190,   191,  235,  236, 

255,  269  n.,  434,  434  n.,  437,  438,  452. 
Hosmer,  J.  K.,  xvii. 
HouteviUe,  181. 

Hudibras  (Butler,  Samuel),  366. 
Hugo,  Victor,  371,  378,  410,  411,  412, 

417.  423.  429- 
Hume,  327,  450. 
Hunt,  Leigh,  199,  412  n. 
Hunt,  T.  W.,  xvii. 
Hussein  Effendi,  248. 
Huysum,  197,  198  n. 
Hyperides,  123,  144,  145. 

Ibrahim  Pasha,  248. 

Idrieus,  66. 

Iliad,  see  Homer. 

lo  of  Chios,  144. 

Iphicrates,  60,  84. 

Isocrates,  73,  73  n.,  78  n.,  79  n.,  82, 

84,  84  n.,  85  n.,  86  n.,  89,  89  n.,  102, 

129,  148,  149,  149  n. 

Jahn,  121  n. 

Jamblichus,  246. 

James,  Henry,  xvii. 

Jenkin,  Fleeming,  374. 

Jerrold,  Douglas,  437. 

Jespersen,  O.,  xvii,  311. 

Job,  263. 

Jocasta,  132. 

Johnson,  Samuel,   204,   206,   207,  310- 

320,  395.  436,  446,  447.  450- 
Jones,  Inigo,  243. 
Jonson,  Ben,  xvii,  179,  248. 


INDEX 


457 


Joubert,  xvii. 
Jowett,  23,  24. 
Junius,  206,  207,  310. 

Karnes  (Kaimes),  xvii,  270,   273,   283, 

311- 
Kant,  326,  327. 
Keary,  C.  F.,  xvii. 
Keats,  283,  284. 
Kellogg,  M.  D.,  xvii. 
Kittredge  (Greenough  and),  311. 
Konig,  E.,  xvii. 
Korting,  G.,  xvii. 
Kubla  Khan,  380. 

La  Bruyfere,  xvii. 

Lachmann,  i,  17. 

La  Fontaine,  426,  427. 

La  Harpe,  xvii. 

Lamb,  Charles,  310,  386,  437,  447. 

Lamb,  L.  A.,  xvii. 

Lander,  xix. 

Lang,  Andrew,  97. 

Lanson,  G.,  xviii. 

Laplace,  326. 

Latham,  272. 

Lear,  293. 

"Lee,  Vernon,"  xix,  xxii. 

Legge,  A.  O.,  xviii. 

Leopardi,  xxi. 

Leptines,  82. 

L'Estrange,  205. 

Leto,  145. 

Lewes,  x,  xiv,  xviii,  193,  312-363. 

Lichtenberg,  259. 

Licymnius,  35,  61,  93. 

Liebig,  305. 

Liers,  H.,  xviii. 

Little- John,  181. 

Livy,  240  n.,  388,  390,  443. 

Lobeck,  60  n. 

Logan,  J.  D.,  xviii. 

Loise,  F.,  xviii. 

Long,  G.,  xviii. 

Longinus,  x,  xii,  xviii,   54  n.,  97-159, 

316,  336,  452. 
Loti,  Pierre,  442.  . 
Louis  XIV,  417. 
Lowell,  245. 
Lucretius,  146  n.,  444. 
Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  16. 
Luther,  22,  202. 
Lutos'lawski,  xviii,  24. 


Lycoleon,  85,  85  n. 

Lycophron,  63,  79. 

Lycurgus,  122. 

Lysias,  29,  31,  32,  34,  38,  42,  49,  50, 

84  n.,  142,  144,  146. 
Lytton,  Bulwer,  xiv,  xviii. 
Lytton,  E.  R.,  xviii. 

Macaulay,  xx,  320,  321,  343,  344,  354, 
i'iS,  356,  357,  359.  360,  367,  382,  383, 
392  n.,  446,  447,  450. 

Machiavelli,  444. 

Macpherson  (Ossian),  296. 

Maistre,  Joseph  de,  414,  415,  432, 

Malherbe,  419. 

Mallock,  W.  H.,  xviii. 

Malory,  xx,  392  n. 

Mandeville,  392  n. 

Mansel,  399,  400. 

Mar,  Earl  of,  358. 

Marcou,  P.  B.,  xviii. 

Marivaux,  179,  422. 

Marmontel,  xviii. 

Marot,  189,  191. 

Martial,  375. 

Masaniello,  430. 

Massillon,  422,  431,  432. 

Masson,  D.,  209,  244  n. 

Mather,  F.  J.,  xviii. 

Matris,  loi. 

Maupertuis,  179. 

Medon,  136. 

Megillus,  104. 

Meidias,  129,  130. 

Melanippides,  78. 

Meredith,  450. 

Merwin,  H.  C,  xviii. 

Michelangelo,  398,  419,  450. 

Michelet,  388,  390,  392. 

Midas  the  Phrygian,  32. 

Mill,  J.  S.,  435- 

Miltiades,  83. 

Milton,  202,  204,  206,  207,  242,  243, 
286,  311,  320,  371,  374,  375,  379,  380, 
388,  397,  412,  445.  447.  451- 

Minerva,  234. 

Minor,  B.  M.,  xx. 

Minto,  xix,  161,  209. 

Mirabaud,  190, 

Miranda,  362. 

Mcerocles,  83. 

Moliere,  419,  421,  422,  424,  426,  437, 
441. 


458 


INDEX 


Montaigne,  204,  367,  396. 
Montesquieu,  173  n.,  179,  346,  422,  425. 

432- 
Moore,  C.  L.,  xix. 
Morley,  John,  xix,  iSo,  452. 
Moses,  no  (cf.  336,  337). 
Miiller,  Johannes  von,  15,  16. 
Murray,  Lindley,  272. 
Murray,  "the  'fluent,'"  223. 

Neptune  (Poseidon),  109. 

Nestor,  27. 

Newman,  J.  H.,  xiv,  xix,  388,  392,  397. 

Niceratus,  91,  91  n. 

Nietzsche,  251. 

Nireus,  94,  95. 

Nollet,  169,  179. 

Norden,  xix. 

North,  Roger,  205. 

O'Brien,  R.  L.,  xix. 

Odysseus,  27,  112. 
Odyssey,  see  Homer. 
Qildipus,  122,  132. 
Orestes,  62,  122. 
Orlando,  373. 
Oronte,  441. 
Osric,  441. 
Ossian,  296. 
Othello,  373. 

Page,  W.  H.,  xix. 

Paget,  Violet,  xix,  xxii. 

Palamedes,  27,  94. 

Pallavicino,  S.,  xxii. 

Palmer,  G.  H.,  192,  193. 

Pan,  31. 

Parker,  J.  W.,  270. 

Parmenio,   108. 

Pascal,   xxii,   181,    190,   326,   327,   390, 

424,  425,  426,  427,  429,  445,  450. 
Pa  er,  xiv,  96  n.,  386-413,  450. 
Paterculus,  218. 
Patmore,  Coventry,  452 
Patroclus,  iii. 
Paul,  Jean,  15,  18. 
Paul,  Saint,  163. 
Paulet,  Mademoiselle,  189. 
Pcabody,  A.  P.,  xix. 
Pearson,  C.  H.,  xix. 
Pellissier,  G.,  xix. 
Pcllisson  (-Fontanier),  181,  190. 
Pelops,  77,  133. 


Penelope,  136. 

Perdita,  362. 

Pericles,  38,  39,  66,  82,  83,  157  n.,  210 
216,  217,  219,  219  n.,  220  n.,  231,  827 
232,  234,  235,  236,  240,  241. 

Petit  de  JuUeville,  169. 

Petrarch,  xxi,  252. 

Petronius,  122  n. 

Phaedra,  183,  184  n. 

Phaedrus,  23-51. 

Phelps,  A.,  xix. 

Pherecydes,  208. 

Phidias,  431. 

Philammon,  91,  91  n.,  92. 

Philemon,  94,  94  n. 

Philip,  127,  139. 

Philistus,  152. 

Philoctetes,  91. 

Philomela,  65. 

Phryne,  145. 

Phrynichus,  133. 

Pindar,   144. 

Pisistratus,  233,  234. 

Pistol,  260. 

Pitholaus,  79,  83. 

Plato,  X,  xviii,  23-51,  56  n.,  66,  66  n.,  73, 
73  n.,  74  n.,  103,  103  n.,  116,  117,  118, 
118  n.,  119,  133,  133  n.,  136,  136  n., 
137,  137  n.,  140,  140  n.,  141,  142, 
142  n.,  146,  147,  158,  158  n.,  159  n., 
246,  266,  266  n.,  322,  388,  394,  443, 

444,  445- 
Plumbe,  G.  E.,  xix. 
Polonius,  441,  452. 
Polus,  35. 
Polycleitus,  147. 
Polyeuctus,   83. 
Poogatchef,  430. 
Pope,  Alexander,  308. 
Poseidon  (Neptune),  109. 
Pratys,  91,  91  n. 
Preller  (Ritter  and),  74  n. 
Prickard,  A.  O.,  97. 
Prodicus,  35. 

Protagoras,  35,  36,  68,  69  n. 
Purser  (Tyrrell  and),  21. 
Pythagoras,  74  n.,  246. 
Pythes,  139. 

Quintilian,  xix,  22,  52,  54  n.,  240,  261, 
316. 

Rauelais,  189. 


INDEX 


459 


Racine,  i8i,  182,  183,   184,   190,  419, 

424,  431- 
Raleigh,  Professor  Walter,  xv,  xx,  438. 
Raleigh,  Sir  Walter,  247,  248. 
Rambouillet,  Marquise  de,  417,  433. 
Ranjitsinhji,  438. 

Raphael,  11,  188,  410,  419,  431,  450. 
Raynal,    Abbe    {Philosophic    History, 

etc.),  432- 
Reid,  Mayne,  377. 
Renan,  442,  445. 
Renton,  W.,  xx. 
Reynolds,  Sir  Joshua,  203. 
Rhadamanthys,  94. 
Richard  the  Lion-hearted,  359. 
Richelieu,  417. 
Richter,  Jean  Paul,  15,  18. 
Ritter  (and  Preller),  74  n. 
Rivarol,  417. 

Roberts,  W.  Rhys,  xv,  xviii,  97,  168  n. 
Robertson,  J.  M.,  xx. 
Roe,  354. 

Ronsard,  417,  418,  419,  423,  429. 
Rosalind,  373. 
Rousseau,  J.  B.,  190,  191. 
Rousseau,  J.  J.,  431,  432,  445. 
Roxane,  182. 
Royce,  Josiah,  270. 
Royer-Collard,  351. 
Ruffey,  de,  179. 
Ruisch,  197,  198  n. 
Rumour,  373. 
Runjeet-Singh,  355. 
Ruskin,  XV,  XX,  344,  345,  350,  353,  354, 

356,  357.  361,  362,  435.  447-452- 

Sainte-Beuve,  441. 

Saint-Real,  181. 

Saintsbury,  xx,  208,  392  n. 

Sanborn,  F.  B.,  245. 

Sand,  George,  423,  445. 

Sandow,  438. 

Sappho,  112,  113. 

Saturn,  284. 

Saunders,  T.  B.,  xx,  251,  264  n.,  266  n., 

267  n.,  269  n.,  363. 
Schclling,  F.  E.,  xvii,  179. 
Schelling,  F.  W.,  253,  255,  428. 
Schiller,  16,  263,  397. 
Schmidt,  59  n. 
Schopenhauer,  xi,  xx,  244  n.,  251-269, 

363.  452. 
Schroder,  2. 


Sciron,  63. 

Scott,  F.  N.,  xii,  XV,  xvi,  xviii,  209,  270, 

312,  313,  362  n.,  385. 
Scott,  Temple,  160. 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  292,  409. 
Seneca,  203,  211. 

Sevigne,  Madame  de,  440,  441,  447. 
Seymour,  T.  D.,  24. 
Shakespeare,    207,    242,    243,    244    n., 

260,  260  n.,  282,  293,  339,  362,  367, 

371.  373.  381.  382,  396,  417,  436,  439, 

441,  444,   452- 
Shandy,  Tristram,  271,  272. 
Shedd,  W.  G.  T.,  xv,  xx. 
Shelley,  294,  451. 
Sibyl,  249. 
Siddons,  293. 
Sidney,  Algernon,  205. 
Sidney,  Sir  Philip,  246,  385. 
Sievers,  E.,  xxii,  385. 
Simonides,  62. 
Sisyphus,  87. 

Smith,  Alexander,  292,  294. 
Smith,  G.  G.,  xx. 
Smith,  Sydney,  324. 
Socrates,  23-51,  103,  159  n. 
Solon,  51,  233. 
Sophocles,  15,  37,  77,  77  n.,  loi,  122, 

122  n.,  132,  132  n.,  144,  213,  243,  339. 
Spencer,    Herbert,    xiv,    xxii,    270-311, 

331.  347.  348,  363,  437. 
Spenser,  Edmund,  206,  246. 
Speusippus,  83. 
Spinoza,  214,  252,  327. 
Stanley,  Hiram  M.,  xx,  270. 
Stanley,  Lord,  435. 
Steinthal,  xx. 
Stendhal,  397,  398,  410. 
Stephens,  240  n. 
Sterne,  271,  272. 
Stesichorus,  88,  118. 
Stevenson,   xiv,   xx,   21,   364-385,   450, 

452. 
Sutton,  W.,  xxi. 
Swedenborg,  403. 
Swift,  xi,  160-168,  206,  269  n.,  434  n., 

436,  438,  440.  445.  446,  45°.  451- 
Swinburne,  450. 
Symonds,  J.  A.,  xxi. 
Symons,  A.,  xiii. 

Tacitus,  7,  15,  21,  207,  336,  367,  390, 
443.  444- 


460 


INDEX 


Taine,  357,  358,  424. 

Taylor,  Jeremy,  202,  205,  3S8,  445,  446. 

Teachenor,  R.  B.,  xxi. 

Telephus,  60. 

Tencin,  Madame  de,  433. 

Tennyson,  297,  388,  396,  435,  445. 

Terence,  11,  21. 

Terentian,  97,  99,  103,  137,  156. 

Terpsichore,  24. 

Thackeray,  320,  392  n.,  397,  412,  413, 

447.  450- 
Thamus,  45,  46. 
Theocritus,  143. 
Theodamas,  66. 

Theodoras  (the  actor),  58,  58  n. 
Theodorus  (the  Byzantian),  27,  35,  88. 
Theodorus  (of  Gadara),  loi,  102. 
Theophrastus,  140. 
Theopompus,  138,  139,  154,  155. 
Theseus,  183,  184  n. 
Theuth,  45,  46. 
Thompson,  56  n. 
Thoreau,  x,  245-250. 
Thrasymachus,  27,  34,  38,  40,  55,  74,  91. 
Thucydides,  119,  131,  134,  145  n.,  149, 

149  n-,  157  n-,  159  n. 
Tillotson,  164. 
Timasus,  102,  103. 
Tisias,  35,  43,  44. 
Titian,  316,  317. 
Tollemache, '  XV. 
Trench,  R.  C,  xix. 
Trenck,  Baron,  214. 
Trent,  W.  P.,  435. 
Trollope,  371. 
Trueba,  de,  xxi,  169. 
Turk,  M.  H.,  209. 
Tydides  (Diomed),  134. 
Tyrrell  (and  Purser),  21.   . 
Tytler,   A.    F.    (Lord    Woodhouselee), 


U 


rania,  24. 


Vahlen,  89  n. 
Valckenaer,  240  n. 
Valois,  Marguerite  de,  417. 
Vaugelas,  415,  426. 


Velazquez,  193. 

Veron,  E.,  xxi. 

Veronese,  Paul,  328  n.,  362. 

Victorius,  70  n. 

Villemain,   169. 

Voiture,  189. 

Voltaire,  xii,  96  n.,  179,  180-191,  262, 
367.  424,  428,  431,  436,  437,  438,  441, 
444,  445.  446,  447,  450,  451- 

Vossler,  K.,  xxi. 

Wackernagel,  ix,  x,  xxi,  1-22,  51,  53, 
96  n.,  97,  179,  269  n.,  362  n.,  363,  385, 

452- 
Wallace,  B.  J.,  xxi. 
Walsingham,  202. 
Watson,  J.  S.,  xv,  xix. 
Watson,  William,  386. 
Weiske,  153  n. 

Welldon,  xi,  21,  52,  58,  159  n. 
Whately,  xxi,  235,  270,  289,  293. 
Wheeler,  D.  H.,  xxi. 
Whelpley,  J.  D.,  xxi. 
Whibley,  C,  xv,  xxi. 
White,  R.  G.,  xxi. 
Wieland,  192. 
Wiseman,  N.,  xxii. 
Wolf,  Christian,  254. 
Wolf,  F.  A.,  17. 
Wolfram  von  Eschenbach,  15. 
Woodhouselee,    Lord    (A.    F.   Tytler), 

xxii. 
Woods,  Mrs.  M.  L.,  xxii. 
Wordsworth,  222,  226,  244  n.,  386,  388, 

389,  395,  413,  441- 
Wren,  Christopher,  415. 
Wright,  T.  H.,  xxii,  270. 

Xenophon,  103,  106,   128,  128  n.,  134, 

137,  137  n-,  140,  140  n.,  156,  156  n. 
Xerxes,  63,  loi,  220  n. 

Zanella,  xxii. 

Zeno  (=  "Palamedes"),  27. 

Zeus,  103,  no,  112. 

Zoilus,  112. 

Zschokke,  16. 


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